Employees gone, office in Berlin gone, company car gone. An entry in the sanctions list of the EU. Then accounts, real estate, just all assets would be frozen or confiscated. For Gerhard Schröder, things are now getting tough after months of clinging to Vladimir Putin and his lucrative position.
The SPD is demonstratively showing that it has had enough of the former chancellor and his love for Russia. But what the SPD doesn’t show is that their actions against Schröder are half-baked and half-hearted, despite pithy announcements.
The Social Democrats need the FDP and the Greens in Berlin, and the Conservatives, Liberals and Greens in Brussels. What a huge array of allies against one man. Apparently, the Social Democrats were unwilling or unable to take action against Schröder on their own. He’ll probably even like it: “Me against the rest of the world.”
The federal party could have set an example weeks ago and promoted the party’s exclusion. But she doesn’t seem to have the strength for that. Top comrades are asking Schröder like a mantra to leave, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser recently called for his exclusion.
But in the end, the party leaves it up to the district and district associations to conduct the regulatory proceedings against the former chancellor. If the federal party got involved in the process – it could – it would, to use the language of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, really boom.
And if it were really important to the SPD to deal with its fatal inclination towards Putin and Russia, it should have scrutinized a number of comrades long ago and, if necessary, subjected them to party order proceedings.
Isn’t what ex-prime minister and pipeline enthusiast Erwin Sellering does and has done harmful to the party? Or his successor in office, Manuela Schwesig? But the party still needs Schwesig, Schröder no longer. You can flex your muscles there. With half strength.
