The bill’s defeat — after Merz secured the passage of a similar motion on Wednesday — suggests that some of his own parliamentary group voted against the bill. All of which puts him in an uncomfortable position little more than three weeks from an election that has looked like his to lose.

Less than three weeks before federal elections, the Forsa poll for RTL/ntv also showed support for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) holding steady at 16%. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was unchanged at 20%.

The support for Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc has dropped by 2 percentage points to 28% within a week, according to a recent survey. This comes less than three weeks before the country's federal elections.