Germany’s Social Democrats Stand by Their Pro-Putin Man

The train to Europe’s moral high ground with respect to Vladimir Putin’s brutal war on Ukraine has left the station, and Germany’s top leadership appears to have missed it. In a decision that will call into question Berlin’s commitment to defending Ukraine against Russian aggression, officials from the German chancellor’s Social Democratic party this week rejected a bid to expel a former chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, over close ties to the Kremlin, for which he refuses to apologize. Mr. Schroeder served as the German chancellor between 1998 and 2005 and was the SDP leader prior to that. Now 78, he has held senior posts in the Russian energy sector but faced withering criticism in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He resigned from the board of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft and declined a nomination for a board-level position at Gazprom. Yet Mr. Schroeder is still chairman of the shareholders’ committee of the Nord Stream pipeline, of which Gazprom owns the majority, and has maintained a close relationship with Mr. Putin, meeting with the Russian strongman in Moscow as recently as July. He recently told German magazine Stern, “I have repeatedly condemned the war, as you know. But would a personal distancing from Putin really help anyone?” Whether it might is an open question, but Mr. Schroeder’s stubborn refusal to ease up on the pro-Kremlin rhetoric or to leave Germany’s top political party of his own accord did convince German lawmakers to shut down his taxpayer-funded office in May. And he gave up the title of honorary citizen of Hannover before city officials had a chance to strip him of it. Yet as the German press agency, dpa, reported, it was at Hannover that an SPD committee determined the ex-chancellor’s actions did not constitute a breach of the party’s rules — even though 17 party members brought proceedings against him. Regardless of whether Olaf Scholz used his influence as the current chancellor and stature in the SDP to sway the arbitration committee against expelling Mr. Schroeder from the party, that the former chancellor is officially untarnished speaks for itself. While the decision puts Mr. Schroeder in the clear, in effect his political reputation is a wreck.The decision also sheds light on Germany’s complicated relationship with Russia, on which it depends for a significant share of the energy it needs to keep its industry going and homes heated. Gas shortages are looming for the coming winter. Germany’s material aid to the Ukrainian military has paled in comparison to the assistance provided by Washington and London. If Mr. Schroeder is not exactly complicit with Mr. Putin, his closeness with the Russian president does represent a questionable kind of comity that would likely trigger more international derision were he a more high-profile European leader, such as Hungary’s populist leader, Viktor Orbán. Mr. Orbán is seen as Mr. Putin’s closest friend, and Hungary is even more reliant on Russian gas than Germany. There are other, more subtle signs of Germany’s meek response to a war that would be raging right next door if it were not for Poland acting as a buffer. By way of example, Berlin city officials recently rejected an application for an exhibition of broken Russian tanks, prompting the outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, to call the decision “a real scandal.” According to newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, the destroyed Russian tanks were to be displayed in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin, in a show of what Mr. Melnyk tweeted would have meant “real solidarity with Ukraine.”There is a tougher line against Russia that Germany, as one of the most important members of NATO, could be taking, but the cultural brouhaha plus the latest Schroeder episode demonstrate that it is choosing not to do so. The risk of this equivocal approach is that being perceived as having a silent hand in perpetuating a deadly stalemate in Ukraine is something that could be to Mr. Putin’s liking. Most officials in Washington would agree that he is the wrong man to be trying to please or placate.

Germany’s Social Democrats Stand by Their Pro-Putin Man

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