The group announced this on Tuesday, according to the Reuters news agency. The SPD politician, who is accused of having close ties to Russia and who has been asked by the party leadership to leave the SPD, initially made no statement on Tuesday. Schröder is a personal friend of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Schröder gave up his position on the supervisory board of the Russian energy company Rosneft last week. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had previously expressed the wish that Schröder should resign his mandate.
The 78-year-old was accused across party lines of filling high-paying positions in Russian state-owned companies, while the European Union is trying to impose sanctions on the Russian economy in order to help Ukraine in this way.
Will Schröder be on the sanctions list?
Because of his commitment to Russia, Schröder also lost the privileges previously granted to former chancellors. The budget committee of the Bundestag decided last week that the office of the 78-year-old with four employees will be wound up. The European Parliament wants to put Schröder on the list of sanctions against oligarchs.
The personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin has also held senior positions on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipeline projects – both natural gas pipelines through the Baltic Sea connecting Russia and Germany. The pending commissioning of Nord Stream 2 has now been put on hold by the German government. The former SPD politician caused a stir when, in the middle of the escalation before the Russian attack on the neighboring country, he criticized Ukraine’s demands for arms deliveries as “saber rattling”.
Source: Nachrichten
