Scholz coalition defies calls for elections after EU rout

Germany will not hold a snap election despite calls for Olaf Scholz to step aside after his governing coalition’s dismal performance in the EU Parliament election, a spokesman for the chancellor said yesterday."The regular election date is next autumn (2025). And that’s what we plan to do,” Scholz’s spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said at a press conference.The coalition suffered a stinging defeat at the European elections, with all three parties in Scholz’s government trailing the conservatives and the far-right, preliminary results showed.His Social Democrats (SPD) scored their worst result ever, coming in third at 14% behind the far-right AfD at around 16% and well behind the conservative CDU-CSU bloc’s 30%.The Greens recorded 12% while the liberal FDP took 5%.In the former East Germany, where three key regional elections are to be held later this year, the AfD was the biggest party, with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper branding Scholz and his government a "coalition of losers”.The result sparked calls from opposition parties for Scholz to follow the lead of French President Emmanuel Macron and call a snap election. Speaking later yesterday, Scholz would not be drawn on the possibility of an election but acknowledged the result was "bad for all three governing parties”, adding that no-one should "simply go back to business as usual”.He also expressed concerns about the growing support for right-wing parties across the European Union."We must never get used to this and it must always be our task to push them back, and to ensure that there are clear majorities in favour of parties with a clear commitment to our democracy,” he said. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was among those calling for Scholz to go."There is now only one task left for Scholz: clear the way for new elections — instead of governing for another year against a large majority of the population,” Weidel wrote on X.Markus Soeder, leader of the conservatives in the southern state of Bavaria, also called for new elections as soon as possible.The three-way coalition "no longer has the support of the population”, Soeder told the RTL broadcaster, calling for Germany to follow in the footsteps of France. Der Spiegel weekly said the EU election drubbing was a personal defeat for Scholz, whose face appeared on many campaign posters alongside his party’s top candidate."Scholz put a lot of himself into the campaign, and it’s been to no avail. On the contrary, his strong presence may even have reinforced the downward trend,” the magazine said.Der Spiegel called on Scholz to make a strong statement about his intentions for the future."After this personal defeat, he must say how he wants to continue to lead... Otherwise the country risks paralysis,” the magazine said. Even voices from within Scholz’s SPD were calling his future into question."With 14% nobody has an uncontested claim to lead the SPD,” said Sigmar Gabriel, a former leader of the Social Democrats.The most obvious replacement for Scholz would be Boris Pistorius, Germany’s popular defence minister.For the Greens, the EU election result represented a significant dip from the 20.5% they scored in 2019.Scholz’s fragile coalition will face its next test when it presents its budget for 2025 at the beginning of July.The SPD and the Greens have often clashed with the liberals on budget issues, with liberal Finance Minister Christian Lindner taking a hard line on spending.