European countries that refuse to share the burden of high immigration will face a financial charge of about €250,000 per refugee, according to Brussels’ plans to overhaul the bloc’s asylum rules.

The punitive financial pay-off clause is one of the most contentious parts of the European Commission’s proposed revision of the so-called Dublin asylum regulation, due to be revealed on Wednesday.

It represents the EU’s most concerted attempt to salvage an asylum system that collapsed under the weight of a million-strong migration to Europe last year, endangering the principle of passport-free travel in the Schengen area.

In recent weeks migrant flows to Greece have fallen due to tighter controls through the western Balkans and a deal with Turkey to send-back asylum seekers arriving on Greek islands. However, the EU remains as politically divided as ever over strengthening the bloc’s asylum rules.

While acknowledging these political constraints, the commission’s reforms aim to gradually shift more responsibility away from the overwhelmed frontline states, such as Greece, in future crises, primarily through an automatic system to share refugees across Europe if a country faces a sudden influx.

Crucially, this is backed by a clause that allows immigration-wary countries to pay a fee — set at a deliberately high level — if they want to avoid taking relocated asylum seekers for a temporary period.

According to four people familiar with the proposal, this contribution was set at €250,000 per asylum seeker in Monday’s commission draft. But those involved in the talks say it may well be adjusted in deliberations over coming days.

“The size of the contribution may change but the idea is to make it appear like a sanction,” said one official who has seen the proposal. Another diplomat said in any event the price of refusing to host a refugee would be “hundreds of thousands of euros”.

The size of the contribution may change but the idea is to make it appear like a sanction

Eastern European states such as Poland and Hungary would welcome alternatives to mandatory asylum quotas but will balk at the high penalties suggested. At the commission’s recommended rate, Poland would need to pay around €1.5bn to avoid its existing 6,200 quota to relocate refugees from Italy and Greece.

These financial contributions are in part designed to fix incentives around migrant quotas, which have badly failed and proved almost impossible to implement even once agreed in law. The commission proposal builds on the EU’s flagship emergency scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees, which has barely redistributed 1 per cent of its target since it was agreed last year.

Germany, Italy and Greece have pressed for far-reaching reforms to the Dublin regulation, which enshrines the principle that northern EU countries, such as Britain or Finland, can deport asylum seekers to their port of first entry.

The commission’s proposal maintains the first-country responsibilities set out in Dublin, which are prized by London and Paris and other countries away from the migration front lines because they, in theory, enable them to deport thousands of asylum seekers.

Brussels has attempted to assuage advocates of a more centralised system by introducing an automatic quota regime to deal with migration spikes. If a country receives more than 150 per cent of its “fair share” of asylum seekers in a year — a level calculated on the basis of population and national income — then it triggers a system to redistribute claimants around Europe.

EU officials refuse to say whether it would be legally possible for countries outside the Schengen passport-free travel area, such as Britain and Ireland, to remain part of the Dublin system but enjoy an exemption from migrant quotas if a surge mechanism is used. The proposal simply states that Britain and Ireland are not obliged to stay within the Dublin system.

The revamp of Dublin is a sensitive issue for Britain, particularly during its charged referendum campaign on EU membership. London has strongly resisted reforms to a regime that has allowed it to transfer 12,000 asylum seekers to other EU countries since 2003.