The leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the SPD, resigned on Sunday from her party’s top posts, raising the possibility that Germany’s embattled government could collapse.
Andrea Nahles, who heads the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), has come under intense pressure after voters handed the party its worst European election results a week ago.
With an eye on three key state elections in eastern Germany in September, the SPD had initially planned to re-examine its partnership with Merkel’s centre-right CDU-CSU alliance in the autumn.
But ahead of a planned leadership vote on Tuesday, Nahles said she would give up her jobs as both party chief and head of its parliamentary group.
“The discussions in the parliamentary group and the broad feedback from the party showed me that the support necessary for the exercise of my offices is no longer there,” said Nahles in a statement.
The 48-year-old said she hoped her resignation “would open the possibility that the succession can take place in an orderly manner”.