BERLIN, 28 September 2021, (TON): German Social Democrat Olaf Scholz vowed to strengthen the European Union and keep up the transatlantic partnership in a three-way coalition government he hopes to form by Christmas to take over from Angela Merkel's conservatives.

Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) came first in Sunday's national election, just ahead of the conservatives, and aim to lead a government for the first time since 2005 in a coalition with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

Scholz, 63, projected a sense of calm assurance when asked whether the close election result and the prospect of prolonged coalition negotiations sent a message of instability in Germany to its European partners.

He said "Germany always has coalition governments and it was always stable."

The SPD, Germany's oldest party, won 25.7% of the vote, up five percentage points from the 2017 federal election, ahead of Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc on 24.1%, provisional results showed. The Greens came in with 14.8% and the FDP won 11.5%.

The SPD's recovery marks a tentative revival for centre-left parties in parts of Europe, following the election of Democrat Joe Biden as U.S. president in 2020. Norway's centre-left opposition party also won an election earlier this month.

Scholz, who served as finance minister in Merkel's outgoing 'grand coalition', said a government led by him would offer the United States continuity in transatlantic relations.