Federal election: Federal President Steinmeier agrees to the election date

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has approved the timetable of the Coalition and Union factions for the new Bundestag elections. According to “current assessment”, Steinmeier considers “February 23, 2025 as a realistic date for new elections,” said the Federal President’s Office on Tuesday evening after a joint conversation between the head of state and opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU), SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich and the Green party group leaders Britta Haßelmann and Katharina Dröge.

According to the Basic Law, the Federal President has the role of dissolving the Bundestag and calling new elections. Steinmeier welcomes “the fact that the parliamentary groups have agreed on a timetable for a vote on the vote of confidence in the German Bundestag on December 16th,” said his spokeswoman. He “made it clear that if the Bundestag withdraws its confidence in the Chancellor, he will quickly decide on a dissolution.”

The spokeswoman announced that Steinmeier would hold talks with the chairmen of all parties represented in the Bundestag before the Bundestag was dissolved. “Transparency and integrity of the electoral process are a crucial prerequisite for trust in democracy,” she explained.

In the conversation with the parliamentary group leaders of the Union, SPD and Greens, the Federal President also advocated “that all centrist factions discuss responsibly and jointly about which legislative proposals can still be implemented in this legislative period,” the statement continued. The aim must be to “ensure Germany’s internal and external security as well as its international reliability in this transition phase”.

By agreeing to the timetable presented by the parliamentary groups, the Federal President is foregoing the full use of the deadlines for the new election procedure enshrined in the Basic Law.

The Basic Law gives the Federal President 21 days to consider dissolving the Bundestag after a failed vote of confidence. If he dissolves parliament, a new one must be elected after 60 days at the latest. In total, the maximum period is 81 days. There are only 69 days between the day of the vote of confidence on December 16th and the planned election date on February 23rd.