Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder cannot be excluded from the Social Democrats (SPD) on the grounds of his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the results of an exclusion procedure launched by party members.

Schroder was chancellor between 1998-2005 and leader of the party between 1999-2004. After being voted out as head of government, he held senior positions in several Russian energy companies and is considered a close friend of Putin, visiting him in Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Two local branches of the SPD, which is also the party of current chancellor Olaf Scholz, launched a party exclusion procedure against Schröder in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But after the matter went through several appeal courts, the SPD’s highest body- the Federal Arbitration Commission- finally ruled on Monday that Schröder cannot be excluded from the party, according to an internal document seen by FAZ.

“The appeals of the applicants against the decision of the district arbitration commission of the SPD district of Hanover, which was made on the basis of the hearing on December 2, 2022, will be rejected,” the letter says.

“Gerhard Schröder can remain a member of the SPD,” it continues.

The committee noted that had lesser sanctions been imposed on Schröder before and had these then been violated, the request to remove him from the party could be viable, but that is not the case.

But not everyone is happy with the result.

“Gerhard Schröder did serious damage to the SPD by not distancing himself from his friend Vladimir Putin and by spreading Russian narratives regarding the war against Ukraine of social democracy, which has always advocated peace and understanding between peoples only in Germany,” explained Pierre Orthen, chairman of the SPD local association in Leuvenbach.

Others called out the fact Schröder has failed to condemn the Russian war of aggression, calling on him to voluntarily resign from the SPD.

Unlike the two local branches, the SPD’s federal party leadership did not launch an exclusion procedure against Schröder but instead appealed to the former chancellor to leave the party voluntarily, which he has not done.

The bar for legal requirements for the unilateral exclusion of party members are high in Germany, and different parties have struggled to exclude a number of problematic members in the past.

(Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.de)

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