Former president Traian Basescu, who is now a member of the European Parliament, condemned in the European Parliament on Wednesday “the problem of Putin’s consolidation by high-ranking officials of the European Union.”

Basescu listed the list of former leaders of EU member states who “devoted themselves to the service of Putin after the end of their mandate”, headed by the former Chancellor of Germany, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder.

“We have another big problem, the problem of the strengthening of Putin by the dignitaries of the European Union, and here I will list some prime ministers of the European Union who, after the end of their mandate, devoted themselves to the service of Putin: Schröder on all lips, Matteo Renzi, former prime Prime Minister of Italy, employee of a Russian company, Christian Kern, former Chancellor of Austria, Francois Fillon, former Prime Minister of France, Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland, Paavo Lipponen, former Prime Minister of Finland, Karin Kneisl, the former foreign minister of Austria, Hans Schelling, the former finance minister of Austria, and Dominique Strauss Kahn (the former head of the IMF, no) certainly could not be absent,” Basescu said.

The MEP from PMP (EPP) did not have time to finish his prepared speech, as the chairman of the session, Rainer Wieland (Germany, EPP), cut off his microphone on the grounds that his time was up.