German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was convincingly beaten by opposition conservatives in his first electoral test since he came to power last year.
He blamed a "catastrophically" low turnout for the defeat of his 'red-green' coalition which lost 12 seats in total and control of the German delegation to Strasbourg.
The SPD chancellor acknowledged that his government had not been "as good in economic and social policy as in foreign policy".
With all the votes counted Chancellor Schröder's Social Democrats dropped 10 points, only taking 32% of the vote.
The Greens also suffered, failing to repeat the gains made by their sister parties across Europe.
The Conservative Christian Democrats took nearly 50% of the vote and now have 53 of Germany's 99 seats in the parliament.
