In a matter of weeks, the European Commission will propose to unravel a decades old key asylum law known as the Dublin regulation.
But its replacement is likely to upset some member states.
On Thursday (14 January), EU commissioner for migration Dimitris Avramopoulos announced the revamp would be based on a distribution key system.
The system would allocate "quasi-automatically" asylum applicants to member states.
It is a big departure from the current Dublin rule.
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Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.