The conflict at the head of state goes to court. Gerhard Schröder, Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, whose personal connections to Vladimir Putin have made him an uncomfortable figure for his party and his country since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, has launched a court case against the German House of Representatives, stripping him of some of his benefits , his lawyer confirmed to Agence France-Presse on Friday.
The information on a complaint by Mr. Schröder against the Bundestag is “correct”, also asserted his lawyer Michael Nagel. A spokesman for the Berlin Administrative Court also confirmed that a complaint had been filed.
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Deprived of some of his benefits as a former chancellor
Last May, the lower house of the German Bundestag decided to strip some of the benefits of the former Social Democrat prime minister because of his friendly relations with Mr Putin and with Russia. The deputy then assured that “in view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he would draw the consequences from his behavior (…)”, according to the budget committee of the Bundestag.
Notably, as a former chancellor, he was entitled to several offices in the Chamber of Deputies, and he was allocated a total recruitment budget of €400,000 per year. As a result of this decision by the deputies, Mr. Schröder was stripped of the offices assigned to him by the state. However, he kept his police protection and his chancellor’s pension.
His lawyer explained on Friday morning on NDR that this decision was “illegal” because Mr. Schröder “only found out everything from the media”. In particular, Me Michael Nagel argued that he too had not had an opportunity to address the parliamentary committee responsible for deciding on those benefits. The Bundestag did not want to comment on this complaint.
Claimed friend of Vladimir Putin and interests in Russia
The 78-year-old former chancellor struck up a friendship with the Russian president in the early 2000s, whom he described in 2004 as the “perfect democrat”. The man, who also sat on the board of oil company Rosneft, decided to leave in May and also announced that he would not join the board of Russian gas giant Gazprom, with which he has ties. old shortcuts.
But unlike most former European executives who sat on the boards of Russian companies before the war, Mr. Schröder was slow to step down from his various posts. Also very involved in Nord Stream AG, he had asked Berlin to reconsider the German government’s position on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the launch of which was blocked due to the imminent invasion of Ukraine.
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Since then, the former chancellor has held firm. “I will not give up my opportunities to talk to President Putin,” he warned in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on July 10. After his recent meeting with the Russian head of state in Moscow, he also reiterated that Russia wanted a “negotiated solution” to the conflict, statements that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called “disgusting”.
“Why should I apologize?” “, explained Gerhard Schröder in a long interview, which took place on Wednesday, March 3rd[e] » the idea that Ukraine will regain Crimea, annexed by Russia since 2014.
In this interview, Mr. Schröder also presented the hypothesis of military neutrality in Ukraine and a solution for the Donbass based on the model of the “Swiss cantons”, without giving any further details. Referring to the energy crisis, he once again accused his own country of refusing to “use the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline”, a decision for which Germany would have to “face the gigantic consequences”.
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For the time being still a member of the SPD
Dropped by some of his staff for that position in recent months, and while some fifteen local chapters of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had called for sanctions against Mr Schröder, the latter was nonetheless kept within his political family, following a decision made this week has been recorded.
“Gerhard Schröder is not guilty of violating the party order because no violation could be proven,” said the SPD regional group in Hanover (North), the former chancellor’s stronghold, in a statement published on Monday. “The Arbitration Commission considers the realm of personal friendships to be part of the realm of private life,” she added, but thought a “clear distancing” from M. Cheese Fries was “desirable.”
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For the current party chairman Lars Klingbeil, the temporary failure of the exclusion does not change the fact that “Gerhard Schröder is politically isolated with his offices within the SPD”. The decision was “bad” for the “credibility of the SPD” but also “bad for our whole country,” said Thorsten Frei, a member of the conservative opposition.
The decision, which has been considered by several SPD members, can still be appealed within a month. Gerhard Schröder also remains threatened by possible sanctions that the European Parliament could impose.