Russian ties shred German ex-leader Schroeder's standing

BERLIN (AP) — Gerhard Schroeder left the German chancellery after a narrow election defeat in 2005 with every chance of a future as a respected elder statesman.

His ambitious overhaul of the country’s welfare state was just beginning to kick in and he had won plaudits among voters for opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Fast-forward to last week: German lawmakers agreed to shut down Schroeder's taxpayer-funded office, the European Parliament called for him to be sanctioned, and his own party set a mid-June hearing on applications to have him expelled.

Schroeder's reportedly lucrative involvement with the Russian energy sector and his friendly relationship with President Vladimir Putin have raised eyebrows for years, even as many others in Germany backed business and energy ties.

But it was his stubbornness in sticking to his energy posts and his failure to wholeheartedly distance himself from Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 that turned the 78-year-old into a political pariah in Germany and estranged him from his party, the center-left Social Democrats of current Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“Gerhard Schroeder has been acting for many years now only as a businessman, and we should stop seeing him as an elder statesman, as a former chancellor," party co-leader Saskia Esken said last month.

On Friday, Russian state energy company Rosneft said that Schroeder plans to step down from its board of directors, which he had chaired since 2017. The move appeared unlikely to undo the damage to his standing; the Social Democrats' general secretary, Kevin Kuehnert, said it was “unfortunately much too late.”

Scholz said he should quit other Russian energy jobs. The ex-chancellor has for years chaired the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream AG and headed the board of...