The ex-chancellor, still a member of the SPD, is sanctioned, because he refuses to resign from his functions in Russian groups.
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Gerhard Schröder is more and more alone. In the space of a few hours, Thursday, May 19, the former German social democratic chancellor was deprived of his office in the Bundestag, in Berlin, and was threatened with sanctions by the European Parliament, in Brussels. In question: his refusal to abandon the functions he occupies in several Russian energy groups, despite the war waged in Ukraine by Vladimir Putin.
In Berlin, the blow came from the Bundestag budget committee. On a proposal, the power coalition – led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – decided that Mr. Schröder would no longer be entitled to the Bureau that the Federal State has allocated him, since his departure from power, in 2005. Concretely , this deprives the former chancellor of the annual envelope of around 400,000 euros he used to pay his employees. In reality, it is not certain that this sum would have been spent this year. At the beginning of March, a few days after the invasion of Ukraine, the four employees of Mr. Schröder – including his chief of staff, by his side for more than twenty years – had indeed decided to leave their boss.
For Mr. Schröder, the sanction could however have been more severe. Conservative deputies (CDU-CSU) wanted to also be withdrawn from his retirement as a former chancellor. But the elected officials of the majority did not wish to go so far, believing that such a decision was likely to be deemed unconstitutional. Mr. Schröder will therefore continue to receive his pension of around 7,000 euros per month and have police protection.
Olaf Scholz Plus reserved
Within the government, the first to react was the Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner. “It’s a good thing! A former chancellor who openly lobby for Putin’s criminal regime should not be offered an office by taxpayers,” said the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), On Twitter, a few minutes after the budget committee vote.
Olaf Scholz waited for the question to be asked at the end of the day to react. And his words were much more sober: “The decision that was made concerning the former chancellor is logical,” was content to answer the current head of government, from The Hague, to a question asked during a conference of Joint press with his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte.
On the other hand, Mr. Scholz was much more reserved for resolution, voted by MEPs, Thursday, May 19, asking to add to the list of sanctions “European members of the Boards of Directors of Large Companies Russians and politicians who continue to receive Russian funds “. “The [of the Bundestag] decision was necessary. Let us go further, I do not think it is essential,” said the German chancellor, adding that “the best would be that Gerhard Schröder leaves the positions he occupies . “
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