Germany's interior ministry is already working on preparing agreements with other European Union countries to return refugees to the countries in which they first registered their asylum claims, a ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is due to travel to Vienna on Wednesday, where he will hold talks with Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban is scheduled to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

Ministry spokeswoman Eleonore Petermann added that there was as yet no timetable for the signing of any agreements.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.