Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has filed a lawsuit against the German parliament – the Bundestag, demanding the restoration of the former head of government’s privileges, partially revoked in May. Schroeder demands that the former chancellor’s former office be returned to him and the staff restored. This was declared to the German agency dpa by Schroeder’s Hanoverian lawyer, Michael Nagel, on Friday, August 12.

According to Nagel, the initial petition on behalf of Schroeder was sent to the administrative court in Berlin. The decision by the Bundestag’s budget committee to deprive Schroeder of his seat in parliament is illegal, according to a statement from the law firm obtained by the dpa.

Hanoverian lawyer Schröder is considered one of Germany’s most famous criminal defense lawyers, the agency notes. He, among other things, represented the interests of the former federal president of Germany, Christian Wulff (Christian Wulff).

Deprivation of Gerhard Schröder of the office and employees

In May, it became known that the ruling coalition in the Bundestag had reached an agreement to close the office of 78-year-old Schroeder. From now on, the special security of former foreign ministers will be justified not by their status, but by the fulfillment of their obligations, the Bundestag’s budget committee said.

Schroeder no longer fulfills any of those obligations, the committee found. The former Chancellor’s pension and protection will be preserved. According to media estimates, Schroeder’s personnel costs were around €400,000 a year. Last year, five employees worked in her office, and the head of the office was paid more than 10,000 euros a month, Handelsblatt reported.

In March 2022, some officials refused to work with the former chancellor in protest at his stance on Russia. They were transferred elsewhere on the Bundestag apparatus. The long-term head of the office and the former chancellor’s speechwriter also left.

After Russia started the war against Ukraine, regional branches of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) presented demands for Schroeder’s exclusion from the party’s ranks. The SPD Special Commission in Hannover, however, saw no reason to censure or expel the former German chancellor from the party.

Criticism of Schroeder over close ties with Putin

In Germany, Schröder was heavily criticized for refusing to distance himself from Putin and unequivocally condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “They do nothing with an aggressor, with an instigator of war like Putin. With regard to the former chancellor, we are never talking about a completely private life. Especially in a situation like the current one,” said the president of The Social Democratic Party ( SPD) criticized Schroeder Lars Klingbeil. “I would like Gerhard Schroeder to take the right side of the story. But he chose the wrong side,” he added.

“Gerhard Schroeder’s work in Russian energy companies has raised many questions in Europe, especially among our Eastern European neighbors, including our country. There is nothing good about that,” said German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier ( Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Walter Steinmeier).

In March, Schröder was stripped of his honorary citizen of Hannover and honorary board member of the local football club Hannover 96. In May, the European Parliament asked that Schroeder be included on the Russian oligarchs’ sanctions list.

Only after that was it announced that the former chancellor was stepping down as chairman of Rosneft’s board of directors, which he had held since 2017. A little later, Schroeder rejected Gazprom’s offer to join the company’s board of directors. For working at Russian energy companies, the former chancellor was paid around one million euros a year, wrote The New York Times.