Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) will not get his office space in Berlin and his employees back. A corresponding lawsuit by Schröder against the Bundestag was dismissed, as the Berlin Administrative Court announced in a judgment on Thursday.
Although the Schröder side had put forward many arguments, the court ultimately dismissed the lawsuit, mainly because there was no clear legal basis that could have been violated. The seven premises are not the responsibility of the defendant, the Federal Chancellery, since they are made available by the SPD parliamentary group. It is true that there has been a permanent regulation with offices and staff for former chancellors for decades, with the scope and staffing being inconsistent. However, this does not mean that all former chancellors are entitled to these privileges for life, ultimately it is at the discretion of the budget committee.
In May last year, the budget committee of the Bundestag revoked some of Schröder’s special rights and decided to “suspend” the office of the former chancellor. Schröder had previously come under increasing criticism for his connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin, at least since the beginning of the war of aggression in Ukraine, but he refused to distance himself from the Kremlin despite growing pressure, including from his own party.
Close to Schröder’s Kremlin
The former chancellor and Putin have been friends and business partners for years. Schröder, who was Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, joined the Russian natural gas company Gazprom shortly after the end of his term and became head of the supervisory board of the consortium for the then newly planned Baltic Sea pipeline for Russian gas. However, these connections were not mentioned in the application decided by the Budget Committee.
Attempts by the Social Democrats to expel Schröder from the SPD because of his stance on Russia have repeatedly failed. It was not until March of this year that it was said again that it “cannot be determined with sufficient certainty” that the former chancellor had violated statutes, principles or the party order or was guilty of an dishonorable act.
According to a press release from the Berlin Administrative Court, Schröder had been of the opinion since his privileges were revoked that “he was entitled to an office with the previous equipment and positions. The entitlement resulted from previous state practice, customary law that had arisen and the principle of equal treatment from Article 3 of the Basic Law.” According to court president Erna Viktoria Xalter, Schröder can go to the next round – she allowed an appeal against the Chancellor’s Office verdict.