The Commission welcomed today the agreement that the European Parliament and the Council have just found to transform the European Asylum Support Office into a European Union Agency of Asylum. It is a core initiative under the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. The new agency will help make asylum procedures in Member States of higher quality, more uniform and faster. Its new reserve of 500 experts will also provide more effective support to national asylum systems facing a high caseload, making the EU migration management system more efficient and sustainable. 

Building on the experience of the European Asylum Support Office, the new agency will have a reinforced mandate that will contribute to:

• More efficient asylum systems through greater operational and technical support to Member States, including training, preparedness, information analysis, and exchange of information.
• Improved assistance on request: A reserve of 500 experts including interpreters, case handlers or reception specialists will be ready to be deployed as part of asylum support teams at the request of Member States. Agency experts will have the mandate to prepare the entire administrative asylum procedure for decision by national authorities, and to offer assistance in the appeal stage.
• Uniform, high-quality decision-making by developing operational standards, indicators, guidelines, and best practices for the implementation of Union law on asylum.
• Better monitoring and reporting on Member States' asylum and reception systems to ensure more consistent practices throughout Europe, fully in line with EU law. The Commission will be able to issue recommendations with assistance measures.
• Capacity building in non-EU countries to improve asylum and reception systems and support EU and Member State resettlement schemes, building on the existing cooperation with UN agencies.

The agreement reached today needs to be formally endorsed by the European Parliament and the Council. As soon as the new regulation has entered into force, which is 20 days after publication in the Official Journal, the European Asylum Support Office will become the EU Agency for Asylum and will be able to act based on its new mandate.