EU member states have reached an agreement about a long-delayed reform of the bloc's rules on hosting asylum seekers and migrants more equally.

Sweden, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency, announced the breakthrough on Thursday after a fraught day of negotiations between EU interior ministers in Luxembourg. 

The deal, which needed approval from a majority of countries representing at least 65 percent of the bloc's population, comes after years of wrangling over asylum policy. But many nations aren't happy about the proposed terms.

Here's what you need to know about how the EU plans to share asylum responsibilities and why it's been so hard to find common ground...

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What changes have member states actually agreed?

The main proposed change to the EU's migration system calls for compulsory help between EU countries - but with an option of doing that in one of two ways.

The first means that EU countries from around the bloc will have to share the hosting of asylum-seekers, taking in many that arrive in nations on the Europe's outer rim, mainly Greece and Italy.

Each EU country would be assigned a share of the 30,000 people the bloc is expected to accommodate in its joint migration system. That will be calculated based on the size of the country's GDP and population, the number of irregular border crossings, and more.

However, nations unwilling to accept more asylum seekers could instead pay a sum of 20,000 euros ($21,000) per person they refuse to take in into a fund controlled by Brussels. Essentially, that means countries will either have to accept refugees from other countries or pay not to host them. 

Other key changes, proposed at the last minute by Italy and Greece, are a cut in the number of people each state would have to take on and laxer rules on sending people back to countries outside of the EU.

There's also the introduction of an expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from staying inside the bloc for years, meaning easier deportations. The mechanism would apply to all those deemed dangerous, uncooperative or coming from countries with low asylum recognition rates in the EU like India or Serbia.

All the new proposals are only part of a preliminary agreement, but it opens the way for negotiations with the European Parliament on legislation that could be adopted before European elections in June next year.

Why has it been so difficult to find a joint position on EU migration?

Agreeing a joint approach has proven all but impossible for EU countries since 2015 when refugee arrivals by sea spiked, overwhelming reception and security capacity.

Ever since, countries of arrival like Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece have demanded more help from their EU peers. The rich destination countries like Germany, France and Sweden have said they cannot be the only places where the new arrivals end up.

The European Commission put forward a new migration and asylum pact in 2020 based on a quota system, but that plan quickly collapsed after refusals from Hungary, Poland and other countries that objected to any requirement to take in asylum seekers. 

Agreeing on how to share out the responsibility for asylum seekers has been particularly explosive as right-wing and populist parties fueled the debate with anti-immigration rhetoric. But the difficult reform has again jumped up the bloc's agenda in the last few years as the number of asylum seekers rose after a pause caused by travel curbs during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The EU has since attempted to crack down on migrant arrivals since by tightening its external borders and its asylum laws, while striking deals in the Middle East and North Africa to have more people stay there. UN data showed fewer than 160,000 people making it across the Mediterranean last year, while nearly 2,500 died or went missing on the dangerous voyage.

But a more broad shake-up of the system has long been in the offing, and Thursday's deal seems to have bridged at least some of the gaps over the heavily contested reform.

How have countries reacted to the proposals?

European interior affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson hailed the progress as a "hugely significant step" for the EU on migration, saying it amounted to "a win-win" situation for all.

Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said he was happy that "all my proposals" were accepted, adding that the deal meant his country would no longer be "the reception center of migrants on behalf of Europe."

Nancy Faeser, the interior minister for Germany - the EU country which hosts the most refugees - said that "these are not easy decisions for everyone around the table, but they are historic decisions."

However, there remains intense opposition to a system which forces countries to take asylum seekers, with Poland and Hungary voting against the reforms. 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday slammed the revisions as "unacceptable", saying Brussels was "abusing its power." He wrote on Facebook that the bloc's executive wanted "to relocate migrants to Hungary with force. This is unacceptable, they want to forcefully turn Hungary into a migrant country." 

Mateusz Morawiecki, the premier of Poland, which refuses to host any of the mainly-Muslim arrivals, added after the agreement was made that Warsaw "will not pay for migration policy mistakes" by others. 

But despite opposition, the deal is expected to eventually win enough backing to be finalized ahead of an EU election in 2024.

How will it affect asylum seekers?

Critics of the agreement said the rapid border procedure in the agreed proposals risked reviving tragic scenes that played out on the Greek islands several years ago by creating even more overcrowded and inadequate migration camps on the EU's periphery.

Oxfam, a charity that aids refugees, criticized the direction of the talks prior to the final negotiations, saying they "will not fix the chronic deficiencies in the EU asylum system." It said, instead, "they signal the EU's desire to barricade Europe from asylum seekers." 

Green members of the EU legislative have denounced the deal as falling short on human rights, with particular concerns being voiced over the plans potentially leading to the protracted detention of minors. More generally, rights groups accused the bloc of trying to legislate the outsourcing of their responsibilities to asylum seekers through the reforms. 

"What was decided yesterday de facto is a coalition of the unwilling who are saying 'we'll call it asylum reform but in fact, we will outsource the protection of refugees to third countries outside of Europe,'" said Karl Kopp from Germany's Pro Asyl organization.

He added that what the EU called "historic" was in fact "a terrible sign to the world: a big club of 27 democracies that says 'refugee protection, yes, but please not here.'"

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