EU agrees on deal to overhaul bloc’s asylum procedures

European Union ministers have agreed on a deal to overhaul the bloc’s asylum procedures after 12 hours of negotiations to obtain the go-ahead from front-line members Italy and Greece.

Home affairs ministers from the 27-member bloc reached an agreement on Thursday, which aims to end years of division dating back to 2015 when more than a million people, most of whom were fleeing war in Syria, reached the EU.

EU’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, said this is a great, great achievement, showing that it’s possible to work together on migration.

The new asylum and migration management regulation (AMMR) is set to replace the current Dublin regulation and change how asylum seekers are processed at the EU’s borders and how they are relocated across Europe.

The Dublin regulation, an agreement originally signed in 1990 and revised three times, set out rules determining which member state was responsible for the examination of an asylum application.