The asylum files: deadlock and dead-ends

The past year has yet to deliver any meaningful reforms of the EU's fractured internal asylum system.

The half-dozen bills under discussion remain either mired in political standoffs, or left on the desks of understaffed and overworked EU delegations.

In October, the EU's council president Donald Tusk set a deadline to finalise the asylum package "with a view to reaching a consensus in the first half of 2018."

It is a familiar refrain that ignores the more practical aspects...