Schröders should lose privileges: The traffic light is serious

Now his party’s patience has also been exhausted: In a motion now submitted to the budget committee, the SPD, together with the Greens and the FDP, drastically cut back former Chancellor Schröder’s special rights.

There are still members in the SPD who are grateful to Gerhard Schröder. For example, for his no to the Iraq war. The party is still talking about the fact that the then CDU/CSU faction leader, Angela Merkel, wanted to send German soldiers to war.

But after Schröder stuck to his supervisory board mandates in Russian companies, patience has also run out in the SPD. Together with the traffic light partners, they want to remove many of the privileges of the former chancellor. This emerges from an application by the budget holders of the SPD, Greens and FDP to the powerful budget committee, which ARD Capital Studio present.

Bundestag office to be shut down

The authors first state that the former Federal Chancellor no longer assumes any continuing obligations from his office. Schröder’s office in the Bundestag will therefore be “put on hold”. They also call on the federal government to ensure that the official appointments of former chancellors “take place in accordance with the ongoing obligations from the office and are not related to status”.

The coalition partners are thus also setting standards for ex-Chancellor Merkel and future former Chancellors. Those who work in the spirit of their former office, for example taking on patronage, giving speeches or undertaking diplomatic trips, can continue to rely on resources in the Bundestag – those who don’t will probably have them deleted in the future.

Personal protection should keep Schröder

In return, the budget holders of the traffic light factions want the positions currently assigned to Schröder’s ex-chancellor’s office to expire and not be filled again after May 19, 2022. The remaining staff should handle the tasks of the office and then be transferred to other posts outside the office. The former chancellor should apparently be allowed to keep his personal protection. In any case, if the assessment of Schröder’s security situation by the BKA continues to be appropriate.

The CDU and CSU had also demanded that the former chancellor should also lose his pension benefits. According to information from ARD Capital Studios SPD, Greens and FDP had this legally examined and ultimately rejected because there is a high probability that the Union’s demand is unconstitutional. The coalition factions want to officially announce the result on Wednesday.