“Recognize the achievements of your life as a whole.” That has been the justification expressed by the new general secretary of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), Matthias Miersch, after speaking of his desire for former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Putin’s man in Germany, to be readmitted to the political formation. At one point in which Moscow’s influence seems to be gained entirely in European governments and parliaments, the SPD resumes this relationship, interrupted by the unpresentable and lucrative senior positions that Schröder held in Russian energy companies, thanks to the influence it enjoys in Germany with former federal chancellor and in exchange for opening doors to Russian companies. The PSD distanced itself from Schröder due to his positions contrary to those held by the party and, however, similar to Putin, for whom he was working even from the German government. Still in the Berlin Chancellery, Schröder signed an endorsement from the German State of 900 million euros to Gazprom for the construction of the first Nord Stream gas pipeline, the route through which Russia would inject gas into the European energy system. As soon as he lost the 2005 elections against Angela Merkel, Gazprom hired Schröder as an advisor with a salary of 250,000 euros per year and since 2017 he was part of the supervisory board of the oil giant Rosfnet, a position with a declared remuneration of 530,000 euros per year. Related News standard Yes Berlin, the “safe haven” of the Russian oligarchs Rosalía Sánchez | Correspondent in Berlin Finally, he was appointed member of the board of Gazprom, although the title he has boasted about most publicly is that of “personal friend of Vladimir Putin”, with which he even celebrates his birthdays. During the last two decades, its activity has involved a network of economic relations, especially in the energy sector, which has made it difficult for German diplomacy to openly confront Moscow. In several episodes he has worked as Putin’s getter, such as when in February 2017 he organized a meeting with Merkel’s Minister of Economy and Energy, Brigitte Zypries, who had been in office for three weeks and had previously been Schröder’s Minister of Justice. to pave the way for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. He got an appointment at the Ministry just a few days later and with just a phone call to which he also brought the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, as a surprise guest. The next morning and without even consulting the Ministry, Gazprom announced the fruitful working meeting in a statement. Miller was also received repeatedly since July 2015 by Sigmar Gabriel, another minister and then president of the SPD, also thanks to the intermediation of Schröder, to whom shadow movements are attributed that would have led to Merkel’s decision to completely dispense with of nuclear energy, following the Fukushima crisis in 2011. All of this from the office that Schröder maintained in the Bundestag, in his capacity as former chancellor of Germany. Only after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the European positioning, his repeated Putin’s defense became unbearable for the SPD and he was removed from the party, in a process that caused internal friction and is now reversed with Miersch’s decision. “We had two arbitration proceedings against Gerhard Schröder and both have certified that he did not behave in a detrimental way for the party,” explained the general secretary of the SPD, for whom the case was “closed from a legal point of view.” “I can appreciate his life’s work in general, especially as president of the Hannover district, even if I have a fundamentally different view on Putin and the attack on Ukraine,” Miersch asserted reconciliation in an interview with Stern magazine. He is the current head of the SPD in Hannover, Schröder’s hometown and where his power base in the party lies. The nodes of the network of economic interests for which he has continued working since leaving the Berlin Chancellery are also concentrated there. The last of his businesses was discovered in March, when Russian coach Sergei Ivanov posted images of a party with Schröder and his wife, Soyeon Schröder-Kim, in Dubai, which was also attended by German businessman Raymundo Scheffler. All of them involved in the economic cooperation between Russia and Dubai in the field of drones and biotechnology. “The current wave of indignation seems ridiculous to me, but in a certain way typically German,” the social democratic deputy Ralf Stegner has supported the reconciliation with Schröder, “a Sometimes I have the feeling that no one wants to talk about facts anymore, it’s a bit like the Catholic Church of a few hundred years ago, when people had to recite the creed to avoid being considered heretics.” “Although I don’t really share some of points of view in relation to Putin and the war in Ukraine, and I also had a different opinion on Agenda 2010, we must recognize some of Schröder’s merits for the country,” Michael Müller, former mayor of Berlin and now deputy, has also defended. of the SPD in the Bundestag.
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