In a bid to combat high influx of migrants, European Union (EU) states have approved an action plan for Turkey, which hopefully will ease the flow of migrants to Europe.

Nearly 600,000 migrants have reached the EU by sea so far in 2015, many of them traveling from Turkey to Greece before seeking to head north.

Turkey made a number of demands in exchange for helping to stem the flow and in return the EU offered Turkey a possible 3 billion euros in aid and the prospect of easier travel visas and “re-energised” talks on joining the bloc.

On Thursday, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said all EU countries must be prepared to send security staff to the bloc’s external borders.

She said it would be unfair to ask EU countries seeing the majority of initial migrant entries to secure borders as well.