European Parliament exit poll invokes changes in national governments. Germany rejects early elections despite vote setback

German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit announced that no early elections will be held in Germany despite the ruling parties' poor results in the European elections. He said this topic wasn't discussed at any point, "not even for a second." Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had decided on such a move.

"The regular election date is next autumn. And that's what we plan to do," Steffen Hebestreit conveyed in Berlin on Monday, as quoted by the portal tagesschau.

The government spokesman noted that the results of the three co-governing parties in Germany - the Social Democratic SPD, the Greens, and the liberal FDP - in the European elections are "unfavorable." He added that these parties would have to conduct a detailed analysis.

Media assessments suggest that the coalition parties suffered a severe defeat in the European Parliament elections. Particularly severe losses were noted by the Greens, who secured only 11.9 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the record 20.5 percent in the previous European elections in 2019. The SPD of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz garnered 13.9 percent of the vote (in 2019, it was 15.8 percent), and the FDP received 5.2 percent (in 2019, it was 5.4 percent).

Markus Soeder, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), believes the European election results in Germany primarily showed that the government no longer has any support among citizens. In an interview with broadcasters RTL and NTV, he demanded "new elections as soon as possible." For example, he cited France, where President Emmanuel Macron called early parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Alice Weidel, co-chair of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which took second place in the European elections in Germany behind the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU bloc, shares a similar opinion. On Monday, she called for elections, saying that now Scholz has only one task: to pave the way for new elections - instead of governing against the clear majority of society for another year.

Meanwhile, in France, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday that he is dissolving the National Assembly and calling for early parliamentary elections. The first round will occur on June 30 and the second on July 7. He announced this after releasing exit poll results from Sunday's European elections, which showed that the far-right National Rally (RN), associated with Marine Le Pen, won significantly.