Europe's plans to deal with the migration crisis include increasing the limits for legal immigration from Africa with easier visa access for certain countries.

Five African states - Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Niger and Ethiopia - will be targeted to curtail migration and incentives may also include preferential trade terms.

The European Commission today proposed a revamp of its Blue Card work permit scheme to expand legal immigration options for skilled workers and support for EU governments to give migrants training and other help to integrate in Europe.

Europe's plans to deal with the migration crisis include increasing the limits for legal immigration from Africa with easier visa access for certain countries. Pictured: African migrants on a boat

The aim is to reduce the incentive for people to try to smuggle themselves into the continent illegally on flimsy boats and put their lives at risk.

'If we ever want to compete with the US Green Card, we need an EU Blue Card that deserves the same merit,' Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said.

The proposals will require detailed discussion and approval by EU governments and the parliament.

Speaking in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Manfred Weber, conservative leader of the biggest party in the EU legislature, welcomed a move to 'speak clearly' to Africa and warned of 'trade consequences' for states that do not cooperate.

But he cautioned on expanding the Blue Card scheme, saying the priority must be jobs for Europeans before immigrants.

One focus of EU pressure will be the reluctance of some African governments to take back their own citizens deported from Europe.

The Commission said some eight billion euros was on offer over five years for aid targeted at giving Africans more incentive to stay at home, though much of that must come from EU states and much is money already promised.

'We propose to use a mix of positive and negative incentives to reward those third countries willing to cooperate effectively with us and to ensure that there are consequences for those who do not,' Frans Timmermans, the deputy head of the European Commission, told the chamber.

Timmermans noted the deal he has negotiated with Turkey to staunch flows of Syrian refugees and other migrants to Greek islands - a deal achieved by offering Ankara financial and diplomatic concessions and criticised by human rights groups - and said there was a need to curb renewed crossings from North Africa to Italy, which have claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

Five African states - Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Niger and Ethiopia - will be targeted to curtail migration and incentives may include preferential trade terms and easier visa access to the EU. Pictured: A sinking migrants' boat near Libya

'We must do the same that we have done on the route through the Aegean also in the southern Mediterranean to find solutions, sustainable solutions,' the former Dutch foreign minister said.

His Commission colleague, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, dismissed a suggestion from Libya's fragile, U.N.-backed government that Brussels might pressure Libyans to take back migrants who set sail from its coast, as Turkey now does.

Europe's plan was to get irregular migrants from Africa who do not qualify for asylum back to their home countries, she said, noting that few Libyans themselves make the crossing.

Jordan and Lebanon in the Middle East, the main hosts along with Turkey of Syrian refugees, would be priority recipients of help under the EU's new migration 'compacts', which the Commission said aimed to leverage EU funding with private investments that could reach tens of billions of euros.