Ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder SUES German parliament after he was stripped of post-retirement perks amid mounting rage over his links to Putin
- Gerhard Schroeder, 78, was stripped of his right to a publicly funded office amid mounting dismay at his refusal to distance himself from Vladimir Putin
- Schroeder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, is suing German parliament
- He has long had a close relationship with Russian energy companies and Putin
Former German leader Gerhard Schroeder, who has become increasingly derided in Germany for his pro-Russian views, is suing the country’s parliament in an effort to reinstate his post-retirement perks as the ex-chancellor.
Schroeder, 78, was stripped of his right to a publicly funded office in May, amid mounting dismay at his refusal to distance himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Schroeder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has long had a close relationship with Russian energy companies and Putin.
Schroeder’s lawyer Michael Nagel told German news agency DPA on Friday that he had filed a suit with the Berlin administrative court.
Former German leader Gerhard Schroeder, who has become increasingly derided in Germany for his pro-Russian views, is suing the country’s parliament in an effort to reinstate his post-retirement perks as the ex-chancellor. Pictured: Schroeder (left) with Putin in 2011 in Russia
The court filing, seen by DPA, said that the decision to close Schroeder’s office and reallocate its remaining staff was ‘rather reminiscent of an absolutist princely state in terms of the way they were made’ and should not be allowed to stand in a democratic constitutional country.
The Bundestag said it had not yet received the suit from the court and could not comment further.
The Bundestag had changed the rules in May to link some privileges former chancellors receive to their actual duties. In their decision, lawmakers didn´t explicitly state Schroeder’s ties to Russia.
But Nagel told dpa that the reasons for the change were obvious and wouldn’t withstand legal challenge.
While chancellor from 1998 to 2005, Schroeder forged the relationship with Putin that came to overshadow much of his career. Schroeder called Putin a close personal friend, and they spent long hours in discussion over drinks.
Schroeder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has long had a close relationship with Russian energy companies and Putin (pictured together in St. Petersburg in Russia in 2012
He travelled to Moscow in late July for a meeting with Putin, after which he said that Russia wanted a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy branded Schroeder’s behaviour as ‘disgusting’.
A champion of the Nord Stream pipeline which carries Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea, Schroeder is chairman of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream AG, operator of the pipeline majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom, according to LinkedIn.
After intense criticism, Schroeder stood down in May from the board of Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft and declined a nomination for a board position at Gazprom.
Earlier this week, Schroeder survived a move at the local chapter of his Social Democrat party to expel him, with a committee saying there was no evidence that he had broken party rules.
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