The German government has dismissed calls for an early election due to the coalition parties' losses in the European Parliament poll held at the weekend.
"The regular election date is the autumn of next year, and we plan to keep it that way," government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin on Monday. "At no point, not for a second, has the idea been floated that new elections could be called in Germany now."
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three coalition parties together secured less than a third of the vote, with his Social Democrats seeing its worst results yet in a national election, a humiliation that was raising questions about the future of his government.
There were calls from the opposition conservative CDU party, among others, for a vote of confidence in Scholz in parliament and a new Bundestag election.
Scholz's government coalition is a four-year project, Hebestreit said. "At the end of the four years, the accounts will be finalized. That's when the voters have their say again, and that's how politics is designed," Hebestreit said.
