German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government coalition suffered a setback in Sunday’s European elections, with its three parties finishing behind the conservatives and the far right, according to polls carried out by public television.
According to surveys carried out at the exit of the polling stations for ARD and ZDF, Mr. Scholz’s SPD obtained 14% of the votes, the worst score ever recorded by this party for this election. In 2019, he had already suffered a historic defeat with 15.8% of the vote.
“This is a very bitter result for us,” said Kevin Kuehnert, general secretary of the SPD, adding that his party would have to look into the reasons for the weak mobilization of its supporters.
The SPD comes behind the far-right AfD party, which obtained between 16.5-16% of the vote, which places it in second position.
The conservatives (CDU and CSU), the party of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, came in first with 29.5-30% of the vote (compared to 28.9% in 2019).
The two other parties in the government coalition, the Greens and the Liberals (FDP), respectively obtained between 12 and 12.5% for the first and 5% for the second.
The Greens are experiencing a marked decline compared to the 2019 election where they obtained 20.5%.
