Spain has woken to flags at half staff on Tuesday as the nation began three days of mourning for the victims of the deadly train accident in the country’s south.

European Union governments are struggling to overcome obstacles to put a new asylum system in place three years after unveiling a plan to reform the bloc's outdated asylum rules.

Spanish police have raided the home of a 25-year-old Moroccan man held over the machete attacks at two Catholic churches the previous day that left a church officer dead and a priest injured in the southern city of Algeciras.

Spain’s interior minister is coming under increased pressure to be more transparent about how Spanish security forces responded to a June storming of its border with Morocco that led to the deaths of at least 23 migrants in the North African enclave of Melilla.

Spanish officials are seeking to justify their policy of sending unaccompanied child migrants back to Morocco.