Friedrich Merz promised tougher measures to tackle illegal migration, including by turning away people at Germany's borders and expanding border controls, promising to act along with other EU members.

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

German election winner Friedrich Merz's conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD) have concluded preliminary talks towards forming a coalition government, heads of the parties said on Saturday.