Proximity to Putin
As in the “absolutist princely state”: Former Chancellor Schröder is suing the Bundestag for office cancellation
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder does not want to accept the loss of his office
© Kay Nietfeld / DPA
In mid-May, the budget committee of the Bundestag painted former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s office and employees. The decision was a reaction to Schröder’s closeness to Putin. Now Schröder is going to court against the deletion.
He’s serious. It had become apparent, now it is almost official. Gerhard Schröder will fight in court for his privileges as former chancellor. Schröder’s lawyers have now filed a lawsuit against the Bundestag with the Berlin Administrative Court.
This has never happened before: an ex-chancellor is taking legal action against parliament. The dispute revolves around the office of the former chancellor on the fourth floor of the House of Representatives on Unter den Linden and the associated positions. In mid-May, the budget committee of the Bundestag decided that the office would be “put on hold” and the staff positions “would be wound up” – in plain English: deleted.
At the same time, the parliamentarians had commissioned the federal government to implement this decision. Around 400,000 euros per year were incurred for the staff alone. Schröder now wants to get his rights as chancellor back in court.
Office was “fixed for life”
In November 2012, Schröder was granted the office and the positions by the budget committee “independent of needs and not task-related” and “fixed for life”. The fact that these privileges were nevertheless abolished was a reaction to Schröder’s closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his commitment to Russian gas companies and his distance from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he perceived as half-hearted at best.
However, this political uneasiness was prudently not mentioned in the so-called “measures resolution” of the Budget Committee. It only vaguely justifies that there should henceforth be office and staff only for “ongoing obligations from the office”; since Schröder no longer perceives this, “the reason for the personal and spatial equipment of the former Federal Chancellor no longer applies”.
Schröder is now taking legal action against this measure, which is perceived as arbitrary. The withdrawal of the special rights is “written on the forehead that reasons other than those given by the ‘new rules’ were decisive for the decision of the budget committee,” argue Schröder’s lawyers. Such decisions are more reminiscent of an absolutist princely state “in terms of the way they came about” and should not last in a democratic constitutional state.
Gerhard Schröder is fighting on several fronts
The attempt to find an amicable agreement had previously failed. The chairman of the budget committee, the former chancellery minister Helge Braun (CDU), had rejected the request for an interview.
The dispute over the former chancellor’s office and jobs is part of a multi-front battle that Schröder is currently waging. In Hanover, he also had to defend himself against the SPD’s attempt to expel him from the party, of which he was chairman from 1999 to 2004. On Monday of this week he achieved his first success. According to the arbitral tribunal, his commitment to Putin and Russian energy companies is not sufficient reason to throw him out of the party, nor is his controversial position on the Ukraine war.
Gerhard Schröder will keep his bodyguard and pension for the seven years as Federal Chancellor.