Gerhard Schröder is suing the Bundestag because he wants his office and employees back. Once again he shows himself to be someone who doesn’t care what “one” does and doesn’t do. He will go down in the history books with three keywords: gas, money and greed.
That’s never happened before: A former Chancellor is suing the German Bundestag. For former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD), it’s about the principle – and about money.
He wants taxpayers to continue to finance his Berlin office and employees. Just as was and is the case with his predecessor Helmut Kohl and his successor Angela Merkel.
It is quite possible that Schröder’s chutzpah will pay off and the courts will agree with him. The justification given by the budget committee for no longer financing Schröder’s lavishly furnished “Austragsstüberl” (personnel costs: 400,000 euros per year) is on shaky ground.
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Formally, the former chancellor is accused of no longer meeting “continuing obligations from office”. In other words, he doesn’t do anything that is related to his previous position.
That is correct insofar as no one in the traffic light government would have thought of using the “permanent representative of Putin in Germany” for any tasks. You could hardly send this friend of the war criminal in the Kremlin to any country in the world without embarrassing Germany – at most to Belarus.
However, Schröder has one point: nowhere is it laid down what is to be understood by the “ongoing obligations” of a former head of government. At best, one could argue that ex-chancellors shouldn’t harm their own country.
This is exactly what Schröder is doing when he downplays the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, on top of that, publicly contradicts the Ukraine policy of the government led by an SPD chancellor. Berlin stands by Kiev’s side, Schröder by his financier in the Kremlin.
There can be no doubt that the Budget Committee’s decision – regardless of the official justification or not – was politically motivated. The taxpayer should no longer finance the office of an ex-chancellor who is harming the Federal Republic out of transparent self-interests.
It is no coincidence that all employees in Schröder’s Berlin office gave up their jobs because they no longer wanted to work for “Gas-Gerd”. In any case, one wonders whether Schröder would find new employees at all if he were to win the legal battle.
Which German civil servant would want to work for a politician that even the SPD is now ashamed of?
Beyond all legal questions, it was right that the Bundestag showed Schröder the red card on the office question. Parliament’s self-respect dictated that. If Schröder had even a shred of decency, he would voluntarily renounce this privilege of being a former chancellor.
But as it is, he shows himself from the side he is familiar with from his political days: as someone who doesn’t care what “one” does and doesn’t do. At the same time, Schröder is continuing the profit maximization course he took after he was voted out in 2005.
True to the motto, money doesn’t stink – and the more of it, the better. The legal dispute over Schröder’s office will only underline this character trait. Notwithstanding some of the merits as Federal Chancellor, he will go down in the history books with three keywords: gas, money and greed.
