Gerhard Schroeder - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

Analysis: Schroeder throws in towel as German industry clings on to Russian gas

John O'Donnell and Christoph Steitz - Reuters — Thu, 26 May 2022 06:07:35 +0000

FRANKFURT, May 26 (Reuters) – Gerhard Schroeder has backed off from taking a top role at Russian energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), dealing a setback to Germany’s gas lobby as it seeks to keep the energy lifeline from Russia open.

The former German chancellor played a critical role in establishing the energy bond between the countries and defending it over two decades.

Earlier this month, following a barrage of criticism, Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft (ROSN.MM) said Schroeder was stepping down from its board.

On Tuesday, shortly after the European Parliament had urged his blacklisting, Schroeder said he would not take a nomination to Gazprom’s supervisory board. Germany had also closed Schroeder’s taxpayer-funded office amid a public outcry over Russia ties.

It marks the end of a controversial career that had seen him forge a friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin underscored Schroeder’s importance as a guarantor for a cheap and steady gas flow in February. “The German citizen should look in his pocket and ask if he is willing to pay three times or five times as much for gas and electricity,” Putin told journalists.

“If he doesn’t want to do that, then he should thank Mr. Schroeder,” said Putin, describing him as a “respectable man” who had laid the foundation for Germany’s gas supply from Russia. “That is the result of his work. It’s his achievement.”

But while Schroeder’s departure from the public eye marks the end of his career, Germany’s energy lobby and pro-Russian voices elsewhere continue to make themselves heard.

“Germany’s policy on Russia is very deeply set in history. It goes far deeper than Gerhard Schroeder,” said Veronika Grimm, one of the German government’s chief economic experts that advises the chancellery.

“If he resigns from his offices in Russian companies, that won’t change much. The dependence on Russian gas remains.”

Grimm now advocates a change in tack but suspects that many in Germany oppose such a shift.

“While no one dares say it, there is, reading between the lines, in some circles, a hope that relations can go back to normal with Russia.”

Despite the announcements on sanctions and promises of arms deliveries, much of which have yet to materialize, Germany’s relationship with Russia has changed little since the war in Ukraine, at least where gas flows are concerned.

Russian gas supplies to Germany have been largely uninterrupted since the outbreak of war.

Long-term gas supply contracts are being honoured, on the grounds that cutting them would trigger an economic meltdown.

Uniper (UN01.DE), Germany’s largest importer of Russian gas, last week said its existing gas contracts with Gazprom would run until the middle of the next decade, at odds with Germany’s Green party economy minister Robert Habeck, who is seeking to end reliance by mid-2024.

Uniper Chief Executive Klaus-Dieter Maubach went as far as describing Gazprom as a reliable supplier, contradicting Habeck, who has said the opposite about Russia. read more

Big German industry names, including chemicals giant BASF (BASFn.DE), underline the importance of Russian gas.

“Russia supplies around 50% of the natural gas consumed in Germany. Russian gas shipments therefore underpin the competitiveness of our industry,” BASF CEO Martin Brudermueller said last month.

“If the natural gas supply from Russia were to suddenly stop, it would cause irreversible economic damage.”

Others in industry, too, see Habeck’s timeline for when ties can be cut sceptically.

Markus Krebber, the CEO of RWE (RWEG.DE), Germany’s largest power producer and importer of Russian gas, said early 2025, rather than 2024, was more realistic to cut ties.

Until then, Germany’s gas lobby hopes to maintain the status quo.

Schroeder appears to still have two positions of influence, as chairman of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream 1, which operates the main artery that keeps supplying German industry with cheap Russian gas.

He is also chairman of the board of directors of Nord Stream 2, the sister pipeline that was shelved indefinitely earlier this year, according to his Linkedin profile. Schroeder did not respond to requests for comment.

For many, severing ties with Russia goes far beyond energy.

“It is not just Gerhard Schroeder who has backed Russia,” Michael Huether of the German Economic Institute.

“There is a long tradition of Russian nostalgia in German politics, driven by history, socialist ideology and disillusionment with America. We’ve often turned a blind eye to Russia’s faults.”

Reporting by John O’Donnell and Christoph Steitz; editing by David Evans

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/schroeder-throws-towel-german-industry-clings-russian-gas-2022-05-26/?rpc=401&

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This is how Putin buys influence in the West

Anne Applebaum — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 16:08:20 +0000

In the old days, these things were done differently. There were KGB couriers, bags of cash, “Moscow gold,” secret subsidies for far-left printing presses: The Soviet Communist Party was seeking to undermine Western democracy, covertly. But it was all pretty small-scale. The U.S.S.R. was not rolling in wealth, and it was never in a position to make its supporters wealthy. Being men of ideology, they weren’t supposed to want money in any case.

Modern Russia, by contrast, has a far easier task. Nowadays, when the Kremlin makes a covert effort to exert political influence and undermine democracy, it has far more tools available – big companies, rich oligarchs, both of which need to keep in with the government – and far more psychological leverage. Instead of the brotherhood of mankind and the unity of the proletariat, modern Russia can appeal to a much simpler instinct: greed. Instead of offering small bits of cash or secret bank accounts, they can now offer deals with friendly Russian businessmen. These are legal, they can be discussed openly, and they create the right atmosphere for friendly relations, even if they never happen.

That’s the background to the curious story of Russian influence unfolding in Britain over the past week, thanks to the revelation of a cache of documents, including email exchanges, published recently in both the Observer and the Sunday Times. The main character, Arron Banks, was the most important funder of the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party (UKIP) as well as Leave.EU, one of the organizations that campaigned to persuade the British to leave the European Union. Banks invested $11 million of his own money into both of those causes and raised an additional $5 million. These are big numbers in U.K. politics, where there is nothing like the spending circus so familiar to Americans.

But where did that money come from? Banks has always said it came from his insurance business, which doesn’t appear to make as much money as he says it does, as well as “diamond mines” he owns in Lesotho, a proposition that at least one scientist says is “geologically impossible.” Now it also appears that Banks, who is married to the daughter of a Russian state official, may have sought business advice further east. On at least one occasion – he and his colleagues visited the Russian embassy multiple times – the Russian ambassador to Britain, Alexander Yakovenko, offered to help him set up an investment in some gold mines in Siberia.

Banks denies that anything came of it. But this curious revelation is interesting on a number of levels. For one, it provides yet another link in the chain of common interests that ties together the Russian government, Banks, the Brexit campaign and UKIP leader Nigel Farage – Farage being a man who has, in turn, links to Julian Assange, Stephen Bannon and Donald Trump. Much more interestingly, it also illustrates how the modern Kremlin political influence machine operates – legally, and without necessarily incurring any government expense.

When the Russian government sought to cultivate a former German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, there was no need for the government to sneak him bribes. Instead, state companies, and companies close to the state, offered him an outsized role in the Russian energy industry: directorships, board memberships, contacts. When the Russian government sought to cultivate Italy’s pro-Russian League, one of the two parties that now constitute the strange far-left/far-right Italian government coalition, the lines of contact similarly went through private channels. The Lombardy-Russia Cultural Association, affiliated with the party, has, for example, offered to help broker contacts for Italian businessmen in Russia, and sponsored investment conferences involving Matteo Salvini, the party leader, as well as Crimean officials.

“Let us introduce you to some useful business contacts” was also, it seems, one of the ways in which the Russian government kept the attention of the Trump family. Even as late as fall 2015, with the presidential campaign well underway, the Russian-born businessman Felix Sater was seeking to broker the construction of Trump Tower Moscow. The goal, he told Trump’s lawyer, was both political and personal: “Help world peace and make a lot of money, I would say that’s a great lifetime goal for us to go after.”Also, he would help get Russian President Vladimir Putin on board with the project, see what could be done to help with the campaign: “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it.” The corrupt implications explain, presumably, why special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed all of the papers surrounding that deal.

Trump Tower Moscow was never built, of course, and it seems that Banks didn’t invest in the Siberian gold mines, either. But they do reveal the Russian government’s modus operandi. Contacts are offered. Connections are made. Some deals go through. Others are dangled, perhaps to keep everyone interested in ongoing relations. Maybe someone will help you win your election, maybe not. Anyway, if you play your cards right, your business will prosper – and you might even get rich like Schroeder when you leave office. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not corrupt.

About the Author : Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum writes a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. She is also the Director of the Global Transitions Program at the Legatum Institute in London. In 2004, she received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for her book “Gulag: A History.”

Source: https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2018/06/17/this-is-how-putin-buys-influence-in-the-west/

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