June 10, 2024
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says there will be no return to ‘business as usual’ after Brexit vote
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday night that the European election results were “bad for all three ruling parties” and warned that his Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) “cannot go back to business as usual.”
“We have to get the job done and make sure our country progresses and becomes more modern, and we have to grow support so we can show results in the next federal elections and win the trust of the people,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin after meeting with the Chilean president.
After the SPD won just 13.9% of the vote, its worst result in a national democratic election in more than 130 years, Scholz warned that the policies of the far-right populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second with 15.9%, must not become the norm.
“We can never get used to it,” he said. “The challenge is always to push them back again.”
Despite the crushing electoral defeat and the success of the far-right in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, Scholz insisted that ultimately there would still be a majority supporting the traditional democrats.
The conservative opposition Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) won 30% of the vote in Germany. At EU level, Ursula von der Leyen’s conservative coalition, the European People’s Party (EPP), also became the largest party in parliament.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will hold early parliamentary elections in June after the ruling party’s poor showing in France, but Germany’s Green party insists that Berlin’s ruling coalition will survive.
“There is no need for a vote of confidence,” said Omid Nouripour, co-leader of the Green Party, which won just 11.9 percent of the vote, down from 20.5 percent in the 2019 European Parliament elections.
