Breakthrough on stalled EU migration deal coming this week, official says

European Union countries are expected this week to agree on how to share out the responsibility of hosting refugees and migrants, a top EU official has said of what would mark a breakthrough after years of bitter feuds within the bloc.

The EU's migration chief spoke ahead of talks between home affairs ministers of the bloc's 27 member states on Thursday. On the table is an overhaul of EU asylum rules which broke down in 2015 as more than a million people - mostly fleeing the war in Syria - reached the bloc across the Mediterranean.

"It's about having a European migration policy," EU migration commissioner Ylva Johansson told reporters. "When we work together, we are so strong … This is not a zero-sum game. It's not about winners and losers.

"If we agree on a common approach to managing migration in a humane but restrictive way together, we would all be winners...