Updated 11.39am with initial reactions welcoming the deal.

EU countries and lawmakers reached an agreement Wednesday on an overhaul of the bloc's laws on handling asylum-seekers and migrants, officials said.

The reform includes speedier vetting of irregular arrivals, creating border detention centres, accelerated deportation for rejected asylum applicants and a solidarity mechanism to take pressure off southern countries experiencing big inflows.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola hailed the deal at a press conference.

This, she said, was maybe "the most important legislative deal of the mandate" and she promised the "historic" package would make a difference.

"Europe needs a robust legislative framework that is the same in all member states, that functions and that protects, an approach that is humane and fair with those seeking protection, that is firm with those who are not eligible, and that is strong with those who exploit the most vulnerable," she said.

"We have managed to find a balance between solidarity and responsibility across all files. It has not been easy, but that only makes this achievement even more important. We have defied the odds and proven that Europe can deliver on the issues that matter to citizens. "

Spain, which chaired the lengthy negotiations in its role holding the EU presidency, said on X, formerly Twitter: "A political agreement has been reached on the five files of the EU new Pact on Migration and Asylum."

European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said: "It's been a long road to get here. But we made it. Europe is finally delivering on migration."

Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen added that "migration is a common European challenge -- today's decision will allow us to manage it together".

The accord still needs to be formally approved by the European Council, representing the 27 EU member countries, and the European Parliament before it enters the bloc's lawbooks.

The migration issue has taken on a harder political edge in Europe in recent years with the rise of nationalist anti-immigrant parties in several EU countries, including Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The negotiators were keen to reach a workable deal that could be enacted before the term of the current European Parliament ends in June 2024.

But dozens of charities that help migrants -- including Amnesty International, Oxfam, Caritas and Save the Children -- have criticised the changes, saying in an open letter that the package would create a "cruel system" that is unworkable.

- Accelerated vetting -

The overhaul, based on a commission proposal put forward three years ago, keeps the existing principle under which the first EU country an asylum-seeker enters is responsible for their case. 

But to help countries experiencing a high number of arrivals -- as is the case with Mediterranean countries Italy, Greece and Malta -- a compulsory solidarity mechanism would be set up.

That would mean a certain number of migrant relocations to other EU countries, or countries that refuse to take in migrants would provide a financial or material contribution to those that do.

The planned reform also aims for an accelerated filtering and vetting of asylum-seekers so those deemed ineligible can be quickly sent back to their home country or country of transit.

That procedure -- which requires border detention centres being set up -- would apply to irregular migrants coming from countries whose nationals' asylum requests are rejected in more than 80 percent of cases.

The MEPs obtained guarantees that families with young children would have adequate conditions and that monitoring would take place so that detained migrants' rights were upheld and free legal advice provided, one lawmaker, Fabienne Keller, told AFP.  

Another point is a proposed "surge response" under which protections for asylum-seekers could be curtailed in times of significant inflows, as happened in 2015-2016 when more than two million asylum-seekers arrived in the EU, many from war-torn Syria. 

The EU is seeing a rising number of irregular migrant arrivals and asylum requests.

In the first 11 months of this year, the EU border agency Frontex has registered more than 355,000 irregular border crossings into the bloc, an increase of 17 percent.

The number of asylum-seekers this year could top one million, according to the EU Agency for Asylum.

Italy, Greece welcome the agreement, but Hungary rejects it

Both Italy and Greece welcomed the agreement. 

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the deal was a "great success" and meant frontline countries "no longer feel alone".

"The approval of the pact is a great success for Europe and for Italy, which will now be able to count on new rules to manage migratory flows and fight human traffickers," Piantedosi said in a statement.  

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced his "satisfaction," calling the deal "an important response" to Greece's calls for change. 

The agreement "is an important European response to the great national effort to implement a strict but fair immigration policy", said Mitsotakis during a cabinet meeting. 

Hungary, meanwhile, said it rejects the EU migration deal in 'strongest possible terms.'  

"We reject this migration pact in the strongest possible terms... We will not let anyone in against our will, no one from Brussels or anywhere else can tell us who we can let in, and we refuse in the strongest possible terms to be punished for this" stance," the country's foreign minister said.