EU unveils new mechanism to help countries under migratory pressure

The European Union has unveiled a plan to help countries on the front line of the influx of asylum-seekers.

The bloc's executive branch, the European Commission, has said that Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain will get additional support when its pact on migration and asylum comes into force next year.

In the EU's first Annual Asylum and Migration Report published on Tuesday, the commission said the four countries are facing acute "migratory pressure" and deserve extra support.

"Greece and Cyprus are under migratory pressure due to the disproportionate level of arrivals over the last year," it said. "Spain and Italy are also under migratory pressure because of a disproportionate number of arrivals following search and rescue at sea in the same period."

Other countries in the 27-member bloc will help the four by accepting some arrivals they are struggling to accommodate, or by offering financial help, it said.

The EU will calculate a fairer way to distribute migrants through a mechanism called the Annual Solidarity Pool, which will also calculate the fee a country can pay in lieu of accepting relocated migrants, the report said. The totals will be based on the country's size, population and GDP.

EU member states will decide the specifics of the Annual Solidarity Pool before the end of the year, the commission added.

'Significant situations'

In addition, the commission said Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland are facing "significant migratory situations" and will get priority access to the bloc's migration support toolbox and be able to apply for exemption or partial exemption from commitments to accept relocated migrants or provide funding.

An unnamed EU official told the Euronews website, "Those who are at risk of migratory pressure would still need to provide solidarity and those who are under significant migratory pressure can ask to be exempted from providing solidarity."

"Solidarity" could mean either accepting migrants, contributing financially or offering another form of assistance, the official said.

Some EU members have expressed opposition to the plan. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on social media that his country "will not be accepting migrants … Nor will we pay for it".

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico have also expressed opposition.

While irregular migration continues to be a huge problem for the EU, the asylum and migration report said the situation had improved during the reporting period, with illegal border crossings down by 35 percent between July 2024 and June 2025.

The European commissioner for internal affairs and migration, Magnus Brunner, told reporters that the bloc thinks it is important to help countries facing disproportionate pressure. He will meet EU lawmakers on Thursday to discuss the plan.