Member-states of the European Union agreed on a deal on regulations to restrict arrivals and distribute the cost and work of hosting migrants among members.
Representatives of the European Parliament and of EU governments reached an accord Wednesday after all-night talks on EU laws collectively called the "New Pact on Migration and Asylum" that should start taking effect next year.
The laws cover screening irregular migrants when they arrive in the EU, procedures for handling asylum applications, rules on determining which EU country is responsible for handling applications, and ways to handle crises.
Migrant arrivals in the EU are way down from the 2015 peak of more than 1 million but have steadily increased from a 2020 low to 255,000 in the year to November, with more than half crossing the Mediterranean from Africa, mainly to Italy.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi called the pact a "great success" for Europe and Italy, and meant that EU border countries most exposed to migration would no longer feel alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said agreement on the past was significant, relieving states affected – including Germany.
Previous efforts to share the responsibility of hosting migrants have foundered because eastern EU members, in particular, were unwilling to take in people who had arrived in Greece, Italy and other countries.
Under the new system, countries not at the border will have to choose between accepting their share of 30,000 asylum applicants or paying at least 20,000 euros ($21,870) per person into an EU fund.
The screening system envisaged will seek to distinguish between those in need of international protection and others who are not.
People whose asylum applications have a low chance of success, such as those from India, Tunisia or Türkiye, can be prevented from entering the EU and detained at the border, as can people seen as representing a threat to security.
Processing of applications would also be sped up.
Amnesty International said the pact would set EU asylum law back decades and lead to greater suffering for people seeking asylum and was a system designed to make it harder for people to access safety.
"The pact will almost certainly cause more people to be put into de facto detention at EU borders, including families with children and people in vulnerable situations," it said.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis Wednesday announced his "satisfaction" with the agreement.
The accord "is an important European response to the great national effort to implement a strict but fair immigration policy," Mitsotakis said during a cabinet meeting.
Along with Italy, Greece has been on the front lines of receiving migrants seeking to enter the EU by crossing the Mediterranean from Türkiye or North Africa.
Since the beginning of the year, some 44,900 asylum-seekers have arrived in Greece, almost all landing on islands near the Turkish coast. It is the largest number in four years, according to the United Nations.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working with migrants have routinely denounced conditions in detention centers on the Greek islands and have accused Greece of pushing migrant boats away from its waters.
The EU's new migration package comes after Greece on Tuesday passed legislation giving residency permits to some migrants who have been in the country for three years and are working.
The legislation is intended to overcome manpower shortages in the agriculture and construction sectors.
