Following a poor showing by his Green Party in the European Parliament elections, German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck said the party needs to conduct a critical review of its mistakes.
"The election was a hard blow for all governing parties, including my party," Habeck acknowledged on Tuesday.
All three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition saw support slip in the European Parliament election, with Habeck's Greens sliding to 11.9%, down from 20.5% in 2019.
Together, the three coalition parties barely ran ahead of the opposition centre-right CDU/CSU bloc, who placed first. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also placed second, ahead of all coalition parties with 15.9%.
"You have to look at this very closely and you have to take the election results very, very seriously. There is a great deal of mistrust that has been expressed," said Habeck, who is widely rumoured to hold ambitions to campaign for chancellor.
He rejected any attempts to blame voters or the other coalition partners for the losses. Habeck said that insinuations that his party "has lost because the others are so stupid to be very, very unappetizing," and he has no interest in joining in.
He declined to say whether the Greens plan to put forward a candidate for chancellor in the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for autumn 2025, saying only that the party will be "analysing everything."