Germany’s SPD begins Schröder expulsion process over ties to Putin

Germany’s ruling Social Democrats (SPD) have opened formal procedures to expel former leader and chancellor Gerhard Schröder for causing “massive damage” to the party’s reputation.

Mr Schröder has become a pariah in German public life for maintaining close contacts with Russian president Vladimir Putin, even after February’s invasion of Ukraine.

The former SPD politician did not appear for the opening of procedures on Thursday in his home town of Hanover, nor did he send legal representation.

At the initial hearing, lasting nearly three hours, SPD officials said they had received 17 expulsion applications from individual local party organisations.

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Thomas Kutschaty, an SPD deputy federal leader, said he saw no future inside the party for Mr Schröder given “the financial and personal dependence on Putin is more important to him than his commitment to the SPD or the legacy of his chancellorship”.

SPD Hanover official Christoph Matterne warned that the party had set a high hurdle for expulsions and expressed doubt that the applicants will be able to prove that Mr Schröder has caused serious damage to the party.

In a statement, Mr Schröder’s lawyer Michael Nagel said he saw “no factual or legal basis” for stripping the ex-chancellor of his party membership.

During his seven years as chancellor, Mr Schröder pursued close contact with Mr Putin and oversaw a boom in bilateral trade and cultural ties.

Even as the Russian president began cracking down on human rights and the media, Mr Schröder insisted the Kremlin chief was a “flawless democrat”. In 2004 and 2006, the Russian leader reportedly intervened to allow Mr Schröder and his then-wife adopt two children, despite a ban on such arrangements for non-Russian citizens.

Nord Stream pipeline

Mr Schröder’s relationship with the SPD cooled after his 2005 federal election defeat when, while as caretaker leader, he signed off on the original Nord Stream pipeline carrying Russian natural gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany.

Months later he joined the Nord Stream consortium supervisory board and, in 2017, was appointed head of the supervisory board of Rosneft, a state-controlled Russian energy company.

His strained ties to the SPD finally snapped ahead of the February 24th invasion after he suggested Ukraine should stop its “sabre-rattling” towards Russia. Since then SPD leaders, local officials and even chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Schröder protege, have condemned the ex-chancellor.

Stripped of honorary titles, in March his entire office staff walked out in protest and the Bundestag administration is attempting to strip him of his €400,000 annual office budget and other privileges extended to ex-leaders.

After recent talks in Moscow, Mr Schröder said he sensed Mr Putin “had an interest in a negotiated solution” to his war with Ukraine.

“What such a solution looks like,” he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily last week, “can only be clarified in negotiations”.