German Chancellor Olaf Scholz casts his vote at a polling station in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, during the German national election. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

- Election posters, showing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and CDU top candidate Friedrich Merz, stand on a meadow in Nieder-Erlenbach near Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz waves to applause after giving a speech at a special party convention in Berlin, Germany, Jan. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/, File)

Germany faces its second change of leader in less than four years after the head of the center-right opposition won Sunday’s election.

Germany's mainstream conservatives have won the country's national election, while a far-right party surged to become the country's second-largest party.

Misleading claims targeting the German chancellor have been spreading online days before German voters head to the polls to elect a new government. View on euronews

Projections show German opposition leader Friedrich Merz’s conservatives have won a lackluster victory in Sunday's national election.

Friedrich Merz's CDU party emerged as the largest party in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, earning 28.6% of the vote.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A reform of Germany's constitutionally enshrined debt brake, which limits public borrowing, would be discussed by the leaders of the conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in coalition talks, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday.