in recent years former german chancellor
gerhard gerhard schroeder has been
better known for his ties to russia than
for his time in office since he left
office in 2005 he's worked for russian
state-owned energy companies now
schroeder has resigned from the board of
directors of moscow-based oil company
rosneft the european parliament earlier
called for him to face sanctions if he
didn't quit schroeder is a close friend
of russian president vladimir putin he
was previously expected to take a top
job at russian gas giant gas prom which
is now looking less likely
dw political correspondent benjamin
alvarez group is on that story for us
ben the former german chancellor has
long been criticized here in germany and
abroad for his close links to russia why
is he making this decision now
unfortunately it's not possible to look
into or read the mind of the former
chancellor but i think there are two
reasons for that on one side you
mentioned that the possibility of being
on a european union sanction list is the
european parliament passed
a decree asking also to governments to
further push and sanction people who are
close to russian companies and on the
other side of course yesterday's
decision by a bundestag committee a
committee of the german parliament that
decided that they will strip the former
chancellor of some of his privileges
that he still has although he will still
receive a pension and still have the
security detail he will not longer have
the office and in that announcement that
the committee made
they did not mention the war in ukraine
because they fear that they might have
legal challenges there and the team
around uh gerhard schroeder already said
that they are analyzing
this because there is of course the
moral aspect but there's also the legal
aspect and as it was not mentioned they
said that he's not following the duties
of a farmer chancellor and there's of
course the question what are the duties
of a former chancellor though this is a
decision that was taken now i think due
to these two factors
tell us a bit about the role that
schroeder played in germany's russia
policy as chancellor and and how it has
changed since he left office
it was always really close when he was
chancellor he left the chancellery in
2005 quickly afterwards he started
working for these companies that
were mentioned already for the energy
sector he lobbied for them to see that
there is this dependency between germany
and russia when it comes to north stream
one north stream two and it's far more
than just a business relationship that
he has with the russian president he
considered vladimir you consider
vladimir putin a friend and many have
been wondering why he did not take a
stand not only in 2014 when we had the
situation in crimea and russia but now
with russia's war russia's invasion in
ukraine he has been strongly criticized
also within
the party within the social democrat
party so closely to russia this is a
decision that was taking now and let's
see if there will be any further
consequences for the former chancellor
ben thank you dw political correspondent
benjamin alvarez gruber
you