The European Union's Migration and Asylum Pact entered into force on June 12, introducing mandatory registration and security screening of irregular arrivals, fast-track border procedures for applicants unlikely to qualify for protection, shorter asylum processing timelines and automatic return orders for rejected claims across all 27 member states, a European Commission press release shows.

The pact is the product of more than eight years of negotiations triggered by the 2015 migration crisis, when over 1 million arrivals exposed the European Union's inability to coordinate policy, prompting member states to reimpose border checks. The previous system, widely considered largely dysfunctional, placed a disproportionate burden on first-entry countries like Greece and Italy while failing to prevent secondary movements northward toward richer member states. The June 2024 European Parliament elections, which produced a more conservative Parliament and a like-minded European Commission, increased political pressure for stricter controls and faster deportations, giving the pact's final push renewed momentum.