Kremlin ties ‘insufficient’ to oust Schröder

GERHARD SCHRÖDER, the former chancellor of Germany, has survived an attempt by his party to oust him over his close ties to the Kremlin.

A court of arbitration for the Social Democrats ruled that there was not “sufficient certainty” that Mr Schröder had violated party rules or brought the party into disrepute.

The court added that it would be “going too far” to claim that Mr Schröder had failed to grasp the dangers of German energy dependence on Russia over the past 25 years.

The decision comes after several local party organisations in Mr Schröder’s home state of Lower Saxony attempted to overturn last summer’s ruling that allowed him to keep his party membership.

In a common statement issued after the ruling, the party chapters said that they were “still firmly convinced that Gerhard Schröder’s friendship with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and his activities for Russian stateowned enterprises ... as well as his failure to distance himself from Putin’s war of aggression ... are not compatible with basic Social Democratic values.”

Mr Schröder, 78, described the ruling as “legally sound and persuasive as well as politically consistent” in an interview with Stern magazine.

Mr Schröder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, took up a job with Nord Stream AG, a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian energy mulitnational, almost immediately after leaving office. During his time in power he built up a close bond with Mr Putin, whom he described as a “pure democrat”.

In the weeks before the Russian invasion he accused Kyiv of “sabre rattling” and gave up lucrative roles on the board of directors of a state-owned Russian oil company months after the invasion began. He also visited Moscow twice last year on self-proclaimed peace missions.