Brussels - Tiny Malta obtained a symbolic victory Thursday as European Union leaders acknowledged that the burden of asylum- seekers entering the bloc should be shared out among member states.

At a summit in Brussels, EU heads of state and government formally approved a European Pact on Immigration and Asylum.

The pact seeks to improve the management of legal migration into the EU, tighten controls on illegal immigrants and construct a common asylum policy.

Under pressure from Malta, whose geographical location in the southern Mediterranean Sea regularly exposes it to a massive influx of migrants from North Africa, leaders agreed to share out the country's burden, if only in principle.

"For those (EU) member states which are faced with specific and disproportionate pressures on their national asylum systems, due in particular to their geographical or demographic situation, solidarity shall also aim to promote, on a voluntary and coordinated basis, better reallocation of beneficiaries of international protection from such member states to others," leaders said in an annex to the pact.

"In accordance with those principles, the (European) Commission, in consultation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ... will facilitate such voluntary and coordinated reallocation," they said.

Malta is the EU's smallest member state and has frequently complained that it does not have enough resources to deal with the thousands of would-be immigrants who each year land on its coasts. (dpa)