Discomfort can usually be read from facial expressions. Deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann was visibly uncomfortable with the situation at the government press conference on Wednesday when she was supposed to be answering questions about former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. For example, to which ministries Schröder’s office staff will return after they have left him, and whether the positions should be filled again. You can’t say anything about that at the moment, said Hoffmann.
No wonder she’s uncomfortable with the subject. There is a former German head of government who continues to act undauntedly as the most prominent lobbyist for Russia. He doesn’t distance himself. In doing so, he is a representative of the German state, the state that indirectly became a party to the war by supplying arms to the Russian war enemy.
One can say that Gerhard Schröder also missed the last possible point in time to get out of the matter properly. It therefore serves him right that he is now being abandoned by all sides at the same time: party colleagues, entrepreneurs, sports clubs.
For the Bundestag, however, the personnel should also be an opportunity to finally scale back the pensions of former Chancellors, Federal Presidents and Bundestag Presidents to a reasonable level and to link the equipment in their offices directly to representative duties and the handling of their previous official business. This isn’t about retirement. It’s about the employees – officials of the German state. They have the right to be used appropriately, so that they can return with their heads held high to their respective administrations from which they were seconded. Just as the taxpayer has a right not to have these officials used for the private business of former heads of state. Dealing with them should urgently be regulated by law.