Brussels, Belgium: EU lawmakers will vote Wednesday on a vast overhaul of the bloc's asylum policies that would harden border procedures for irregular arrivals and require all member countries to pitch in.
The new Migration and Asylum Pact is a package of 10 laws drawn up after years of negotiations that aim to get European Union countries -- all with different national priorities -- to act together on the issue of migration, using the same rulebook.
If just one of the laws is rejected the whole package would fail -- though it is likely that would trigger last-minute haggling.
The European Parliament's main political groups have indicated they will back the package. Parties on the far right and far left, though, are against one or more of the laws.
Migrant charities and non-governmental organisations have also come out against the pact, seeing it as a bid to buttress "Fortress Europe" and make it much harder for refugees to seek protection.
"It's a vote that is not a given," acknowledged Fabienne Keller, a French lawmaker in the parliament's centrist Renew group who shepherded one of the texts through.
The failure of one text could sink the entire package, she said, even though "a democratic majority in the European Parliament supports it".
The package would establish border centres to hold irregular migrants while their asylum requests are vetted and speed up deportations of those deemed inadmissable.
In the name of European solidarity, it would also require EU countries to take in thousands of asylum-seekers from "frontline" states such as Italy and Greece if they find themselves under pressure from inflows.
Alternatively, the other EU countries could provide money or other resources to the under-pressure nations, or offset those contributions by helping with border security.
A particularly controversial measure is the sending of asylum-seekers to countries outside the EU that are deemed "safe", if the migrant has some ties to that country.
EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said Tuesday that she was "proud" of getting the package to a voting stage.
"I do hope that we will get it," she said. "This has been a marathon."
