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.

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.

In Germany, coalition governments are typically formed through a two-step process: parties first engage in exploratory talks to assess potential alliances before entering formal coalition negotiations