European Parliament President Martin Schulz | Patrick Hertzog/AFP via Getty Images Martin Schulz chooses Berlin over Brussels European Parliament president tells POLITICO he will run for the German Bundestag and won’t seek another term in his current job next year.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, will run for a seat in the German Bundestag next year, he told POLITICO.

Given that he's set to head the list for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, he is virtually guaranteed a seat in the federal parliament — formalizing his ambition to be a contender for Germany's top job in next year's election.

"You woke me up. I'm going to make a public statement at 9:30 today," Schulz said when reached by phone after midnight early Thursday.

He then confirmed a report by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that he's going run for a seat in the Bundestag and give up seeking reelection as European Parliament president early next year.

“It was not an easy decision," Schulz told reporters in Brussels later on Thursday, saying it was an honor to be president of the Parliament. “From now on I will be fighting for this project from the national level, but my values do not change.”

Leaving Brussels, Schulz gives up on an ambition that he has pursued ever since he was elected Parliament president: “I wanted to make the Parliament more visible, more audible and more influential,” he told POLITICO in an interview earlier this year. “And I get the feeling that I’ve pulled it off.”

Schulz's ultimate ambition, however, may be to run for chancellor as the candidate for Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) in next year’s election.

The SPD, coalition partner to Chancellor Angel Merkel's conservatives, has yet to pick its candidate for chancellor. Merkel announced her intention on Sunday to run for a fourth term.

According to a report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last week, Schulz has already asked SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel to put his name forward for the top job in German politics. Gabriel, who is currently vice chancellor and economy minister in the "grand coalition," had planned to announce the party’s candidate at the beginning of next year and is considered likely to run himself.

With Schulz leaving, the race for Parliament's presidency focuses on candidates from the conservative European People's Party.

Irish MEP Mairead McGuinness confirmed on Wednesday evening that she is putting her name forward to become the EPP's nominee for president.

“It’s very early days, but as I said the race is on and I am very happy to be one of those being considered as one of the candidates from our group,” she told Irish media.

Other conservatives have also thrown their hat into the ring. Alojz Peterle, a former prime minister from Slovenia, said he was running as well. French veteran MEP Alain Lamassoure and former EU Commissioner Antonio Tajani, from Italy, are expected to do so, too.