Former Chancellor and ‘Putin’s man in Berlin’ Schröder is a headache file for German government

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD), Nord Stream 2 lobbyist and friend of Putin, is the enfant terrible of political Berlin. Now his party wants to take his car with driver and office in the Bundestag.

Tuesday 22 February 2022 was a memorable day for former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Not because he was married for the sixth time – Schröder is still with his fifth wife. No, the German government decided after years of struggle – including US sanctions on German companies – and the current Ukraine crisis to put the controversial Russian-German gas pipeline Nordstream 2 on hold. Despite Schröder’s years of effort.

Gerhard Schröder, in addition to being a former chancellor on behalf of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SDP), a bon vivant, earner and a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is the enfant terrible of political Berlin. As chairman of the supervisory board of the Nordstream AG consortium, he has been defending Russian gas interests in his home country since the end of 2005. Putin’s man in Germany called the Süddeutsche Zeitung him this month†

For a long time this, though embarrassing, was mainly an annoyance for the government in Berlin. But since the Ukraine crisis has once again brought tensions over Nordstream 2 to a boiling point, the Schröder issue has once again made headlines in Germany.

Nordstream 2 is a 1,234 kilometer long gas pipeline from the Russian coast near St. Petersburg to the German town of Lubmin on the Baltic Sea. The pipeline will double the capacity of direct Russian natural gas transports to Germany. Nordstream 2 was built for five years. The costs: 9.5 billion euros, half of which will be borne by the Russian state gas company Gazprom. The pipeline is complete, but awaits approval from the German and European authorities.

Vulnerable Ukraine

The US has been adamantly against the project for years, and even announced sanctions against European companies involved at the end of 2019. In their view, Russia is getting too much influence on the European gas supply, which it can one day use as a weapon. Nordstream 1 and 2 also render the existing gas network virtually redundant. As a result, Ukraine is missing a fortune in transport revenues and is becoming vulnerable: Russia can leave the country in the cold without harming the transports to Europe.

After Russian armies took up position on Ukraine’s borders in recent weeks, Schröder has rapidly moved from annoyance to serious problem. While Western allies believe that Russian aggression is at the root of the threat of war, Schröder . spoke in his podcast That Calendar expressed the hope that Ukrainians would finally stop doing that Säbelrasseln (‘clatter of arms’).

That turned out to be the last straw: it unleashed a storm of criticism from German media. ‘In a matter of war and peace, Schröder is at the service of the aggressor’, headlined the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung† The süddeutsche: ‘Schroeder is Putin’s political master of arms† In early February, it emerged that in addition to his position at Nordstream 2 and head of the supervisory board of the Russian state oil company Rosneft, Schröder was also a candidate for the supervisory board of Gazprom. ‘It is hardly possible to get closer to the Kremlin’, wrote the süddeutsche†

The question that remains: what can the government do about it? After all, Schröder is a private person.

Never a transatlantic driver

Money and status undeniably play a role for Schröder. According to German media, the former chancellor earns somewhere between 600 thousand and more than 1 million a year from his supervisory activities. Schröder is reported to be twenty years old good friends with Putinwhich was immortalized on his 70th birthday when he met the Russian president in the arms closed†

But Schröder is also an exponent of German history. Coming from an SPD wing that has always been at least as suspicious of the US as it was of the Russians, Schröder turned further east during his chancellorship. In the words of the süddeutsche: Schröder, who led Germany from 1998 to 2005, was never a transatlantic driver†

His experiences with George W. Bush’s administration and the “partially lying” policy regarding the Iraq war have reinforced his mistrust. Especially in the last years of his chancellorship, Schröder often traveled to China, partly because he saw opportunities there for the German car industry. As far as Russia is concerned, Schröder believes above all in cooperation, in accordance with the principle that European security can only be achieved with Russia.

Take away privileges

The CDU is calling for Schröder to take away his privileges as a former chancellor, after the influential Taxpayers’ Union also called on Schröder at the beginning of February. This appeal is also heard within Schröder’s own SPD.

Former chancellors will have access to an office with staff in the Bundestag and an official car for which a driver is available at all times. Schröder’s privileges cost German taxpayers 407 thousand euros last year, the German business newspaper calculated Handelsblatt†

The chance that the privileges will be taken away is not very great; it would mean a complete overhaul of the scheme – although the German Court of Auditors has been arguing for austerity for some time. Schröder himself probably won’t part with it either. In 2019 he summarized in conversation with weekly magazine of the mirror his response to the criticism he had already received at that time succinctly summed up: it’s my life, not yours†