Status: 09.02.2022 7:14 p.m
SPD General Secretary Kühnert accused former Chancellor Schröder of blurring the line between business and politics. That’s not only wrong, “it’s even sad,” says Kühnert.
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert has distanced himself from the activities of former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The former chancellor put “business interests at the forefront of his actions,” said Kühnert to the Berliner “Daily Mirror”.
“In doing so, he blurs the line between his business activities and the listening he gets as an experienced ex-head of government. That’s not only wrong, it’s even sad,” says Kühnert.
Schröder accused Kiev of “saber rattling”.
Schröder had repeatedly commented on the Ukraine crisis in the past. He recently accused Kiev of “saber rattling”. This accusation is “an obvious distortion of the facts and, with all due respect, simply rubbish,” says Kühnert. Russia is said to have stationed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border.
Shortly after the statements, it became known that Schröder had been nominated for the supervisory board of the Russian company Gazprom. He is already Chairman of the Shareholders’ Committee of Nord Stream AG, President of the Board of Directors at Nord Stream 2 AG and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russian state energy company Rosneft.
Kühnert: “Border crossing”
Schröder’s lobbying for the Russian gas business kept him “very busy as a social democrat and general secretary of my party,” said Kühnert. He was convinced that former Chancellors could play an important role in diplomacy.
Schröder has also done this many times, but now there is “a border crossing between the sphere of business and that of international politics,” says Kühnert.
Kühnert refers to the former SPD chancellor Willy Brandt, who after his tenure in the Socialist International made a self-sacrificing effort to balance the global North and South, and Helmut Schmidt, who became a “tireless traveler and world explainer for an entire nation”. .