Election winner Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU, its Bavarian sister party CSU, and the Social Democrats (SPD) have taken a major step toward forming a coalition government, the heads of the parties said.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) have agreed on a framework document for further negotiations on forming a government, according to Der Spiegel. Less than two weeks after the early elections to the Bundestag,

Germany's CDU, CSU and SPD parties have produced an exploratory paper on their plans on various topics, including migration, overcoming the first major hurdle on the way to forming a government together.

By Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) -German election winner Friedrich Merz's conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD) have concluded preliminary talks on forming a coalition government, Merz told reporters on Saturday in a joint announcement alongside other party leaders.

Germany’s conservative bloc and the Social Democrats agreed to deepen talks over forming a new government, a step forward as pressure builds on Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz to implement sweeping reforms.

Germany's conservative bloc and the Social Democrats (SPD) said they agreed on the importance of enhancing the country's defence capabilities both domestically and internationally, during their exploratory talks that concluded on Saturday.