Following his Green Party’s poor showing in European Parliament elections, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said the party needs to critically review its mistakes.
“The elections were a hard blow for all the ruling parties, including my party,” Habeck acknowledged on Tuesday.
All three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government coalition saw their support fall in the European Parliament elections, with Habeck’s Greens falling to 11.9%, down from 20.5% in 2019.
Together, the three coalition parties barely edged out the center-right CDU/CSU opposition bloc, which came in first. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also came in second place, 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. A lot of mistrust has been expressed,” said Habeck, who is widely rumored to have ambitions to campaign for chancellor.
He rejected any attempt to blame voters or other coalition partners for the losses. Habeck said he has no interest in joining the suggestions that his party “has lost because everyone else is so stupid that they are very, very unappealing.”
He declined to say whether the Greens plan to field a candidate for chancellor in the next parliamentary election, scheduled for fall 2025, saying only that the party will “analyze everything.”
