The quadrennial event suffered an untimely blow last week when European Athletics announced it would be reverting to stand-alone European Championships after this year.

But the comments from Andy Grote, the Interior and Sports Minister for the City of Hamburg, will have raised spirits within the organisation that put on the inaugural multi-sports event in 2018.

According to German press agency DPA, Grote has maintained that the city is very much interested in hosting a future edition of the multi-sport European Championships.

"We are in talks with the relevant organisers," he said at a press conference held in connection with the Active City Arena on the Heiligengeistfeld.

"We talk about everything that could be interesting for Hamburg."

Hamburg also announced in 2019 that it was "very interested" in hosting a future version after the success of the opening European Championships.

Four years ago, athletics took place in Berlin and aquatics, cycling, golf, artistic gymnastics, rowing and triathlon were hosted mainly by Glasgow, with Edinburgh and Gleneagles staging diving and golf, respectively.  

Four years on Munich will stage nine sports - athletics, beach volleyball, canoe sprint, cycling, artistic gymnastics, rowing, sport climbing, table tennis and triathlon.

However, the removal of athletics from the potential programme for 2026 - with aquatics already having left - has been viewed as a severe blow for organisers.

In November 2015, Hamburg dropped out of the bidding for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics following a public referendum in which almost 52 per cent of voters were against the idea.

But feedback from the inaugural multi-sport European Championships, including encouraging indications on viewing figures from German TV broadcasters ARD and ZDF, prompted renewed interest from Germany's port city of 1.8 million people.