In 2025, the EU saw 669,400 first-time asylum requests and 178,000 irregular border crossings. The scale is putting pressure on the five member states along the Central Mediterranean route: Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Greece received 83% of all first-time asylum applications.
Frontline countries lack the physical capacity to shelter applicants, and processing can take years, leaving hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in legal limbo. Local budgets are also unable to provide adequate long-term healthcare, education and social assistance.
The EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact aims to ease this pressure by bringing non-border countries forward: states must choose between relocating a set quota of asylum seekers to their own territory (the baseline minimum is 30,000 asylum seekers per year) or paying approximately €20,000 per rejected applicant into a shared EU fund.
It also aims to speed up processing by requiring border states to conduct identity, health and security checks within seven days of an applicant’s arrival. It will upgrade the Eurodac database, improve the shared tracking system and fast-track certain applicants.
The Pact is only half the story. The Commission's most controversial fix to the migration crisis is the Return Regulation, a separate law that aims to significantly expand deportation powers.
The Commission’s latest State of Play report showed that countries are quite advanced in implementing the Pact, "with the key pillars of the new system now in place". Do you agree? Are EU states ready for a new migration system? Our poll is anonymous and takes only a few seconds to complete. The results will be featured across EU-wide XL coverage - in videos, articles and newsletters - and will help shape our reporting as we examine how Europe can secure its position in the age of artificial intelligence.
