German Foreign Minister Baerbock: EU asylum reform - a challenging yet correct decision

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has written a letter to the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag in support of the EU interior ministers' agreement to take a tougher approach to migration, after the deal divided lawmakers within her party.

The decision was "very difficult as foreign minister, as a Green and also personally," Baerbock wrote. She nevertheless considers the agreement to be the right one, because it will improve the status quo for many refugees.

The interior ministers of the EU member states reached an agreement to tighten asylum policies on Thursday.

The deal entails the processing of asylum seekers at the bloc's external border and relocating refugees to the various member states.

The talks had sparked controversy within Germany's three-way government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and the Free Democrats (FDP).

The Greens had been criticized that the plans are at odds with the party's traditionally refugee-friendly policies.

During the negotiations, the German government had fought hard to keep the restrictions on freedom as low as possible, especially for families, Baerbock wrote to the deputies. "Unfortunately, only Luxembourg, Ireland and Portugal were on our side in this."

Baerbock had already promoted the compromise to her party and parliamentary group on Thursday.

German Green Party leader Omid Nouripour pointed out that the joint agreement must still be negotiated with the European Parliament.

"This is a matter of design, about which we still have to talk very, very hard with each other within the European Union," he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

"We have always pushed for families to be completely exempted, for vulnerable groups not to get into these border procedures. That has not been achieved," he added.