Berlin, 24 July 2024 (dpa/MIA) - The next German national elections are to take place on September 28, 2025, according to a decision by the Cabinet on Wednesday.

The date put forward by the Cabinet has yet to be approved by the president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, but this is usually a formality.

The last elections in 2021 were won by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats. He went on to form what has been an uneasy three-way coalition with the Greens and the business friendly Free Democrats.

The centre-left coalition has lost much of its popularity since then, however, and is currently being beaten soundly by the conservative opposition in the polls.

Scholz said in a press conference on Wednesday, which was happening as news of the Cabinet decision emerged, that he planned to run for a second term as chancellor in the next elections.

He said that his party, the centre-left SPD, was united: "We are all determined to go into the next federal election campaign together and win."

Scholz had previously been asked whether he wanted to follow the example of US President Joe Biden, who had announced his decision not to run for president again. "Thank you for the extremely nice and friendly question," Scholz said pointedly in response.

The chancellor said he was confident that the continuing multi-billion-euro gap in the 2025 budget can be plugged and that all parties in his coalition felt that the outstanding tasks are "solvable."

It is still being examined whether planned measures totalling €8 billion are unconstitutional. The review should be completed by mid-August, after which the draft budget will be submitted to the Bundestag and Bundesrat.

Despite the uncertainty, Scholz says he is not letting his party's poor standing in the polls get him down. "Poll results that are not good are an incentive to achieve better ones."

Scholz was convinced that he would have turned the polls around by autumn 2025. His government, he said, had made the right decisions in times of great uncertainty.

Photo: EPA