German Chancellor Angela Merkel took partial blame yesterday for a weekend election rout amid voter rage over a colossal bail-out for Greece, and pledged to show more "decisive" leadership.
Lamenting a "bitter defeat" for the centre-right last Sunday in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Mrs Merkel said a first step would be to rule out tax cuts "at least" in the next two years.
Her coalition allies since the national election in September, the pro-business Free Democrats, had pressed Mrs Merkel to slash taxes but Germans are sceptical in light of Germany's parlous public finances.
North Rhine-Westphalia, with its 13.5 million voters, was ruled by the same coalition Mrs Merkel has in Berlin, making the poll a damaging referendum on her government in its first electoral test since she was re-elected in September.
The poll drubbing robs Mrs Merkel's coalition of its dominance both in the state legislature and the Bundesrat upper house of Parliament at a moment in which the 16-nation eurozone, and Germany as its top economy, face a historic crisis.
A visibly chastened Mrs Merkel acknowledged that infighting on issues including tax policy at the start of the seven-month-old government had hurt the NRW re-election drive.
"In the first months (of the new coalition) we did not provide any momentum to the government in NRW," she said.
"On the contrary, we were a factor holding them back, and there were many avoidable disagreements."
She said the atmosphere in Berlin had improved of late and pledged to run her government with a firmer hand. "With great decisiveness," she added.
The timing of the election could hardly have been worse for Mrs Merkel's centre-right alliance, which has ruled NRW since 2005.
Germans strongly oppose the €22.4 billion in loans over three years to debt-wracked Athens which was approved Friday as part of an EU-IMF rescue, as Berlin struggles with its own fiscal problems.
And Sunday, the European Union announced an emergency trillion-dollar rescue package for crisis-hit eurozone countries to which Germany will also make a major contribution.
Mrs Merkel appeared before the press earlier yesterday to insist that the costly efforts to shore up the euro were also in the interest of German taxpayers.
"We are protecting the money of people in Germany," she said. "This package serves to strengthen and protect the common currency."
Mrs Merkel also pledged a round of budget cuts to get Germany's fiscal house in order.
The centre-left daily Tages-spiegel accused Mrs Merkel of dithering in the run-up to the state election as the eurozone struggled to regain stability amid the Greek debt turmoil, and had paid the price at the polls.
"Never before has a federal government's fear of a state election had such a disastrous impact on the EU and the stability of the euro.