German conservative leader Friedrich Merz described the major victory by his Christian Democrats (CDU) in European Parliament elections as a major boost for their opposition to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition.
The result was "a complete disaster" for all three parties in Scholz's coalition, Merz said on Monday after meetings with top CDU party committees in Berlin.
He called the Greens the big losers in the European Parliament elections, although Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) faced their worst result in a democratic nationwide election in more than a century.
The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), achieved a significantly better result than in the 2021 German parliamentary election, Merz noted.
Merz described the CDU/CSU's result of 30% "at the lower limit" of what he had expected, and would be "an incentive" to keep working to further improve the centre-right bloc's standing.
He drew particular attention to September's state parliament elections in three states in the former East Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has built a strong following and led in the European Parliament election results.
The AfD's growing strength in the east is a major challenge for all parties, Merz said. He contended that the far-right populists have benefited from poor policies pushed by Scholz's coalition.
