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(Bloomberg) – German Chancellor Olaf Schulz has stepped up pressure on his predecessor Gerhard Schroeder to leave his lucrative job as chairman of both the state-owned Russian oil giant Rosneft PJSC and the Nord Stream AG’s shareholders’ committee following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A Social Democrat like Schulz, Schroeder, 78, served as Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, but the former leader has been embarrassed by his party for refusing to sever ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s state-owned energy companies. .
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Schulz welcomed the ruling coalition’s decision to remove Schroeder from his office in the lower house of parliament.
“The German parliament’s decision on the former chancellor is reasonable and something that should be implemented now,” Schulz told reporters after talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague on Thursday. “It would be best if Gerhard Schroeder quit his job.”
Asked if he would support the move to keep Schroeder on the EU’s list of approved persons, Scholes added that he did not see the need for such a move at the moment.
The SPD, Greens and Free Democrats of Germany’s ruling coalition Scholes agreed to revoke Schroeder’s rights at an office in the Bundestag on Wednesday. Instead of automatically granting future benefits to former chancellors, they will associate them with official duties after leaving office.
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The SPD last month called on Schroeder to leave the party, saying a process was under way to oust him. Schroeder, who lost to Angela Merkel in the 2005 election and defended Putin over alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, said he did not think the orders came from a Russian leader.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner did not rule out the possibility of Schroeder’s inclusion in the EU’s list of authorized persons, although he warned that there were legal barriers to such action and that the government had not yet agreed to a unified position.
Read more: Germany removes Schroeder from Bundestag office
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