The ensuing excitement only grew when the 77-year-old former Chancellor was appointed to the board of Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom on February 4, cementing his place as an embodiment of Germany’s deep energy ties with Russia and President Vladimir Putin’s expansion Reach into European politics through Moscow’s natural gas wealth.
The move has raised concerns that Putin could be using his longtime friend to drive a wedge in Germany’s ruling party, which is scrambling to formulate a coherent policy towards Moscow as Russian troops gather near the Ukrainian border. And Scholz’s party has struggled to distance itself from Schröder amid questions about how much influence the former chancellor-turned-Russian energy lobbyist still wields.
Schröder was instrumental in the birth of the project that has been the biggest bone of contention between the federal government and Washington in the current crisis: Nord Stream 2, the not yet operational natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
Despite pressure from the United States, Scholz is reluctant to join President Biden in unequivocally declaring that the pipeline will not be turned on in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, citing “strategic ambiguities”.
Though Schröder holds no political office in Germany, his ties to Russia’s energy sector have drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum at such a sensitive time, including calls to strip him of his taxpayer-funded perks.
“In these times of escalation, that’s really wrong,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, CDU member of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, on Schröder’s decision to strengthen his ties with the Russian energy sector.
At best, according to Kiesewetter, Schröder would act “completely inappropriately” and damage Germany’s reputation. But lawmakers also fear the former chancellor is part of a Putin “chess game” to try to split Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, which leads a tripartite coalition formed after September’s election that marked the end of Angela Merkel’s leadership of the country marked the age of 16.
“He’s a tool,” said Kiesewetter.
The former chancellor is not alone in the so-called increasing “Schroederization” of European politics, as Moscow seeks to gain political influence through the revolving door between business and power.
There is former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who was appointed to the board of state-controlled Russian oil giant Rosneft last year and rose to fame photographed in 2018 dancing with Putin at her wedding. Former French Prime Minister François Fillon was also appointed to the boards of Russian state oil company Zarubezhneft and Russian petrochemical giant Sibur last year. Former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel was appointed to the board of the Russian oil company Lukoil in 2019.
But none of their connections comes close to the Schröders in scope and influence. The former chancellor declined an interview request and did not respond to questions put to his office.
“[Putin’s] The aim is to damage Germany’s credibility with its partners, be it the United States or the EU partners,” said Sudha David-Wilp, deputy director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund, on Putin’s intentions with Schröder’s new nomination. “Maybe it works.”
More important, however, is the question of how the Social Democrats resolve their differences of opinion about their party’s Russia policy.
For the Social Democrats, dealing with Schröder is like “dealing with the strange uncle who comes over for dinner, you don’t want to embarrass everyone,” she said.
High party officials have distanced themselves from Schröder and stressed that he no longer has much influence in the party. The way in which Schröder mixes economic interests with his role as former chancellor is “not only wrong” but “even sad,” said SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert in a recent interview with the Tagesspiegel.
“I don’t know anyone in the party who shares his opinion,” said the Social Democratic Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, the Rheinische Post.
And Scholz has emphasized in interviews in the USA and Germany that the former chancellor does not speak for the party.
“If I understand the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany correctly, there is only one Chancellor and that’s me,” Scholz told ZDF when asked that two Social Democratic Chancellors had made contradictory statements about the crisis.
But this week it emerged that a member of the Scholz government had met with Schröder last month to discuss the “future of German-Russian relations and civil society in Russia” in the midst of the Ukraine crisis, which was a triggered a new round of criticism.
“The protests of the SPD leadership to distance themselves from Gerhard Schröder are refuted by the fact that the former Chancellor and top Russia lobbyist continues to maintain close contacts with the Scholz government,” said CDU member of the Bundestag Matthias Hauer, asking the federal government for information on Schröder’s contacts with officials.
According to Hauer, Schröder met with the parliamentary state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Johann Saathoff, on January 5. Saathoff was the Foreign Office’s contact person for Russia until December. Also present were Heino Wiese, a former Social Democrat MP and lobbyist who is also Honorary Consul of Russia in Hanover, and Matthias Platzeck, former Social Democrat state chairman of the state of Brandenburg.
Saathoff did not respond to Washington Post requests for comment. However, he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he asked for the meeting to discuss “civil society” and that Schröder had made no attempt to influence government action.
The former chancellor’s pro-Kremlin attitude has been known for a long time. As Chancellor in 2004, Schröder famously described Putin as a “flawless democrat”. In the same year, for the chancellor’s 60th birthday, Putin traveled with a Cossack choir to Schröder’s house in Hanover.
He used his final days in office to start the wheels on the first Nord Stream pipeline. It was 10 days before the 2005 election – which he was expected to lose – when he left the campaign trail to sign a memorandum of understanding with Putin in the pipeline. It gave Russia a way to send natural gas to Europe, which bypassed Belarus, Poland and Ukraine – and weakened those countries’ influence over Moscow.
Less than three weeks after Schröder left office, he was appointed head of Nord Stream’s shareholders’ committee. He has since used his connections to promote its new sister project, Nord Stream 2. open the door a meeting of Gazprom boss Alexey Miller with officials in Berlin.
In the midst of the recent conflict in Ukraine, Schröder celebrated his 70th birthday in St. Petersburg at an event hosted by Nord Stream, which was also attended by Putin. They greeted each other with a warm hug just two months after Russian forces annexed Crimea. In 2017, he assumed the position of chairman of Rosneft, which is under US and European Union sanctions over Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and other actions.
“Sure, he’s just a former chancellor, but of course he has a huge network in Germany,” says Timo Lange, an activist at LobbyControl, a Berlin lobbying watchdog. “In public discourse he always speaks with the authority of a former chancellor. This is a headache for many politicians in the Social Democrats.”
A recent article from the German news website T-online outlined Schröder’s meeting with Manuela Schwesig, Prime Minister of the State of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, where the Nord Stream 2 pipeline ends up in Germany. Schwesig is also a social democrat and known for her strong support for business ties with Russia, including the pipeline.
“They have a pretty big economic interest in Nord Stream happening,” Lange said of the state government. “Schröder uses his influence where he can.”
The former chancellor said he was committed to Russian-German relations.
It’s “my life,” he said in response to criticism as he took up his life $600,000 a year position at Rosneft in 2017 and said it was not up to the German media to decide what he would do with it.
When asked if he was afraid of being used by Putin, he said: “I’m not useful.” Salaries for his positions at Nord Stream are not public.
But in the current crisis, outrage has reached a new high. “why is he doing this?” read a headline in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday.
“The former head of government is Vladimir Putin’s best man in Germany,” it said.
The controversy comes as the Social Democrats struggle to agree on a Russia policy, and Scholz is attempting to rally a left-wing wing committed to a détente towards Russia, as advocated by Willy Brandt, the party’s Cold-era chancellor war, has been proposed, and the approach reconciles reality with today’s geopolitics in mind.
“The party doesn’t really have a direction or doesn’t speak with one voice,” said Peter Matuschek, head of political and social research at the German opinion research institute Forsa. “Former Chancellor Schröder makes things even more complicated.”
