Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker called Thursday for new elections, caving in to demands by coalition and opposition parties after a seven-hour debate in parliament over the country's scandal-tainted SREL intelligence agency, dpa reported.
Juncker, who has been in office for 18 years, said he would meet Luxembourg's grand duke at 10 am (0800 GMT) Thursday to tender his government's resignation and request elections, after it became clear the majority of parliamentarians wanted to go to voters.
He did not say whether he would run in the new elections, which have to take place within three months.
Earlier, Juncker had spent almost two hours rejecting a catalogue of accusations in a parliamentary inquiry into many years of systematic shortcomings at SREL.
"Unfortunately, I have to discover that the explanation I gave did not meet with unanimous, spontaneous comprehension," Juncker said.
He had argued that he could not be found personally responsible for the agency's problems.
Juncker, the European Union's longest-serving prime minister, is prominent as a founding father of the euro and the first president of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, a post he held from 2005 until earlier this year.
But the Christian Socialist premier lost the support of his Social Democrat coalition partners Friday, after a parliamentary inquiry found that he held "political responsibility" for years of malpractice at SREL.
The parliament's six-month commission of inquiry concluded that SREL had barely been held to account and took on a life of its own, repeatedly intercepting communications and bugging individuals, as well as allegedly being involved in shady domestic affairs.
All political parties represented in the commission, except Juncker's Christian Social Party, voted to support its 140-page report.
At the start of Wednesday's hearing, the report's author, lawmaker Francois Bausch, listed several of SREL's shortcomings, including widespread espionage and alleged breaches of laws and international treaties. He accused Juncker of failing to pass along information to the agency's oversight board, and of underprioritizing the secret service.
"By the best will, I cannot - although I am in the hand of the parliament - recognize any personal responsibility of a subjective nature," Juncker responded.
The premier admitted to having made mistakes, but said that if ministers had to step down over every little error, "then many would have to resign."
Specifically, Juncker said he should have suspended former intelligence agency director Marco Mille, who used a special wristwatch to secretly record a meeting with the premier in January 2007.
Instead, when details of the incident emerged he had merely advised Mille to "reorient professionally," because it would have created a bad impression with international partners if SREL were left without a chief, Juncker said.
He criticized himself for failing to ensure that reforms passed in 2004 were implemented. The intelligence services had not always been his "first priority," he said.
Juncker said he had never intentionally done wrong. Responding to an allegation by one opposition lawmaker that he had deliberately abused the secret service for his own profit, Juncker said, "I am not that kind of person; if you think so, then vote."
However, Juncker's arguments failed to win over the government's coalition partner or the four opposition parties. Both groups filed no-confidence motions, calling for Juncker to take responsibility for the intelligence service scandal.
He made his announcement before the motions got to a vote, saying that he had "never expected" the Social Democrats to trip him up.
New elections could be held on October 20, observers have suggested, amid earlier speculation that the intelligence service scandal could bring down Juncker's government.