German lawmakers agreed Thursday to strip Gerhard Schroeder of his office and staff after the former chancellor maintained and defended his longstanding ties with Russia and its energy sector despite the invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Schroeder has also stepped down as chairman of a Russian state energy company, Rosneft, following controversy generated by his refusal to distance himself from the Russian oil giant.

Mr. Schroeder, 78, led Germany between 1998 and 2005. He has become increasingly isolated in recent months due to his work for state-controlled Russian energy companies. He served as chairman of the supervisory board of Rosneft and has been involved with the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline projects.

Separately, German regulators are drawing up plans to ration gas to the country’s businesses in the event of Russia cutting off its supplies, the Telegraph reported. Such a move could prove crippling to German industry, should Berlin at some point deem it necessary.

The ouster of Mr. Schroeder came as a clear sign that German policy vis-a-vis energy is very much in flux. 

The move was expected after lawmakers with the governing coalition — which is led by Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats, also Mr. Schroeder’s party — on Wednesday proposed linking some of the privileges former chancellors enjoy to actual duties, rather than their status as ex-leaders. A financial policy spokesman for the Greens, one of the governing parties, Sven Kindler, tweeted that parliament’s budget committee approved a change to the rules that would leave Mr. Schroeder’s office “dormant.”

To reduce the chances of a legal challenge, the proposal didn’t explicitly mention Mr. Schroeder’s ties to Russian companies or to Vladimir Putin. The ex-chancellor will be entitled to bodyguards and a pension.

Earlier this year, several office staff quit and Mr. Schroeder faced a fresh wave of outrage from former political allies after the New York Times quoted him saying that a massacre in Bucha, a community outside Ukraine’s capital, “has to be investigated” but that he didn’t think orders to kill Ukrainian civilians would have come from Mr. Putin, whom the German counts as a longtime friend.

The co-leader of the Social Democrats, Saskia Esken, last month urged Mr. Schroeder to leave the party.

Mr. Scholz described Thursday’s decision as “logical.”

“I think this is the reaction that is right now, and I don’t consider further ones necessary at present,” he added. That was an allusion to a separate call Thursday by the European Parliament for European Union sanctions to be imposed on Mr. Schroeder.

As for potential gas rationing in Germany,  the president of Germany’s regulator, Klaus Mueller, has said the size of a given company, importance of the sector, and potential economic losses would be taken into account when determining any rationing of gas supplies, the Telegraph reported. Germany could also pay companies to reduce consumption. 

Last month Russia halted gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland and supplies from Russia to Finland are set to be cut on Saturday — seen as a retaliatory move following the Finnish application to join NATO coupled with the country’s refusal to pay for gas in rubles.

About 40 percent of the EU’s gas supplies still come from Russia, even as the bloc tries to wean itself off resource dependence on Moscow through sanctions and looking further afield, for example to America and Qatar, for new supplies.