How EU is reshaping its asylum system

The EU reached a landmark preliminary agreement yesterday to reform its laws on asylum-seekers and irregular migrants. Here are the main changes, agreed after lengthy negotiations between EU member countries and the European Parliament that still must be formally adopted: Border filtering: The new EU Asylum and Migration Pact will see migrants irregularly entering the EU undergo identity, health and security checks, and have biometric readings of their faces and fingerprints recorded. The procedure aims to determine which migrants should receive an accelerated or normal asylum application process, and which ones should be sent back to their country of origin or transit. Streamlined vetting: Asylum-seekers with lower chances of receiving protection status – defined as those coming from countries whose nationals’ asylum applications are, on average, rejected in at least…