Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, is set to meet Horst Koehler, the country’s President, on Monday to discuss his plan to call an early general election after his party suffered a crushing setback in a state poll in a one-time regional stronghold.

The surprise decision to bring forward the national poll by a year came after Mr Schröder's Social Democratic party lost North Rhine-Westphalia, the country's most populous state, to the Christian Democratic Union, the largest opposition party, after nearly four decades in power.