EU states set to back some asylum reform laws

EU states at the Council level are expected to back the files on Wednesday before eventually going for a plenary vote in the European parliament. All three are part a wider effort to reform the common European asylum system, which includes the contentious 'Dublin regulation' that determines the member state responsible for processing asylum claims.

Provisional agreement has already been reached on reforming the EU asylum agency known as Easo.

That means that Dublin, the asylum procedures regulation, and Eurodac, a fingerprint database for asylum seekers, remain to be sorted.

"It [asylum procedures regulation] won't be possible to reach an agreement on before the Austrian presidency," said Steven Ryan, a deputy head of an asylum unit at the European Commssion. Austria takes over the rotating presidency from Bulgaria on 1 July.

He said Eurodac negotiation talks are also continuing although an agreement is expected shortly.

The initial plan had been to advance all seven files as part of a single package given they are interlinked.

But political disputes over proposals in Dublin to distribute asylum seekers across member states have ravaged the talks, and exposed major divides within the European Union ahead of the EU summit later this month.

The European Commission has since proposed adopting Eurodac and Easo as stand-alone reforms.

The provisional agreements, which still need to be signed off by EU states, comes amid an upsurge in tensions over Dublin and threats by Germany's interior minister to block some asylum seekers from entering the country.

Meanwhile, German chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping to secure agreements with Italy and France in the lead up to the EU summit and stave off a CSU (Christian Social Union) rebellion, headed by Horst Seehofer, the German interior minister.

On Monday, she met with Italy's prime minister Giuseppe Conte where she also appeared to endorse ideas of having EU asylum applications processed outside the European Union.

"These are all questions that we will discuss in the coming months and where we want to work very closely together," she said.

Merkel is meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron in Berlin on Tuesday where the two will discuss similar issues, as well as other plans to reform the Eurozone.