Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the EU should consider levelling sanctions against Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for his vocal support of the Russian government.
“It is important that there are sanctions against those who advance (Russian President Vladimir Putin)’s projects abroad,” Klimkin told German daily Bild in an interview published yesterday. “Gerhard Schroeder is Putin’s most important lobbyist worldwide. It should be examined whether the EU can take action.”
“It’s important that sanctions aren’t only imposed on members of the Russian government and Russian state-run companies,” he was quoted as saying.
Klimkin’s comments came after a similar call by the Wall Street Journal in an editorial on Friday.
Just weeks after leaving office in 2005, Schroeder – a close friend of Putin – became head of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream which delivers gas to Germany through a Baltic Sea pipeline and is majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom.
The pipeline has been criticised by Kyiv because it bypasses Ukraine.
Last August, Schroeder again drew fire for accepting a $500,000-a-year pre-tax board job with state-controlled Russian oil giant Rosneft, which is subject to Western sanctions over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine conflict.
“I don’t think what Schroeder is doing is okay,” his successor Angela Merkel said at the time, joining a chorus of public criticism of the centre-left Social Democrat who served from 1998 until Merkel defeated him in 2005.
However, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said yesterday that Berlin had no plans to seek punitive action against Schroeder.
“The German government, and the chancellor, do not see any reason to pursue considerations of this kind,” he said at a news briefing.
Relations between Ukraine and neighbouring Russia have fallen to an all-time low in recent years as Russia supports a separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s two easternmost regions, both of which border Russia.
Bilateral relations plummeted four years ago when Ukraine ousted its pro-Russian president.
Russia responded to the ouster by annexing Ukraine’s southern Crimea region.