By Emanuele Berro and Friederike Heine
Oct 9 (Reuters) - Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz is “deeply outraged” by former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s visit to Vladimir Putin’s home to celebrate the Russian president’s birthday this week, a German government spokesperson said on Friday.
Schroeder, who served as chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has faced criticism in Germany and abroad over his links to Russian business and Putin, ties that have persisted despite Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent waves of Western sanctions.
“Putin alone is responsible for the war in Ukraine. His orders are the cause of immeasurable suffering, civilian casualties, families being torn apart, dead and wounded,” the spokesperson said. “The chancellor sees … it as downright immoral for Mr. Schroeder to attend such a celebration.”
Putin turned 74 on Thursday.
Schroeder, 82, and his wife, So-Yeon Schroeder-Kim, who sometimes handles his communications, did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The visit also drew criticism from within Schroeder’s own Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The party’s co-leader Lars Klingbeil, who is also Germany’s finance minister in Merz’s conservative-led coalition, called it “completely unacceptable” in view of the suffering caused to Ukraine’s people, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.
Schroeder has been appointed to several high-ranking positions in Russian companies in the last 20 years.
Shortly after stepping down, he became chairman of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream, the Gazprom-led Baltic Sea pipeline project he had championed while in office, and later held senior positions at Russian oil producer Rosneft.
Earlier this year, Putin said Schroeder would be his preferred interlocutor for talks on new security arrangements for Europe, an idea immediately rejected by the European Union and Merz’s government.
Last week, Schroeder joined the supervisory board of Russian retailer Hyperglobus, a spin-off of Germany’s Globus Holding which operates more than 20 supermarkets in Russia.
(Reporting by Emanuele Berro and Friederike Heine; editing by Matthias Williams and Gareth Jones)
