Election reactions

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) remained Germany's strongest party despite suffering losses in Sunday's European parliamentary elections.

The conservatives' victory dealt a crushing blow to their Social Democrat (SPD) grand coalition partners. Support for the SPD fell to record lows in Sunday's election.

Vice-Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD's candidate to challenge Angela Merkel described the defeat as "a disappointing result."

Steinmeier said there was no point in beating around the bush. "I expected a different outcome," he said. "Moreover, I would have liked to have seen a different outcome."

Speaking on Germany's ARD public broadcaster on Monday morning, Social Democrat Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrueck said he felt a "certain sense of helplessness" in light of the EU ballot. He conceded that the SPD's election campaign strategies had not been as good as the party imagined.

Although the SPD garnered just 20.8 percent of the vote, Steinbrueck said there was no need to open up a personnel debate within the party.

Speculating ahead

Germany's conservatives were jubilant, saying Sunday's victory bolstered their bid to retain power in September's national election.

"We will be able to build on these results in preparation for national elections in September," Ronald Pofalla, general secretary of Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU) told radio station Deutschlandradio. "We have achieved our mission: the CDU is by far the strongest political party in Germany."

Pofalla said Sunday's poll had proved Chancellor Angela Merkel to be the "most popular and most trusted political personality in Germany."

The leader of the CDU parliamentary group, Volker Kauder told the Bayrischer Rundfunk radio network that the EU vote represented "a clear opportunity" to form a government with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), Merkel's preferred coalition partner, in September. Kauder added that "elections are not won until polling stations close their doors."

The FDP was the biggest winner in Sunday's election, taking 10.9 percent of the vote -- an increase of 4.8 points.

The general secretary of the FDP, Dirk Niebel, said the only coalition possibility he could see was between Merkel's CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party the CSU, and his own pro-business party.

Not a done deal

But Juergen Trittin of Germany's Green Party, which came in third on Sunday night with 11.6 percent of the vote, warned the conservatives and the liberals not to get carried away too soon.

"For those who are running about grinning like Cheshire cats, squinting at the parliamentary elections, I have just one thing to say: The FDP did not even win as much as the CDU and CSU lost between them."

An editorial in the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung said it was too soon to cut the SPD out of the mainframe of German politics.

"The chances for a conservative-FDP coalition have indeed increased, but the low voter turnout could well give the wrong idea about party popularity," the paper said. "In September, it will be much easier for the SPD to mobilize frustrated supporters to cast their ballots than in European elections which are widely considered to be unimportant."

tkw/dpa/AFP

Editor: Sonia Phalnikar