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Schroeder Govt Guaranteed Credit for Russias Gazprom
The former German government of Gerhard Schroder guaranteed a credit of one billion euros ($1.2 billion) for the Russian gas group Gazproms Baltic pipeline project, a German daily said in its Saturday edition, Deutsche Welle reported.A few weeks before Schroeder stepped down as German chancellor following elections in September, his coalition of Social Democrats and Greens approved the billion euro ($1.2 billion) guarantee for Gazprom, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung said. The gas company has since named Schroder as head of its supervisory board. The report comes after Schroder was voted in Thursday as head of the supervisory board of a consortium that plans to build the natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Gazprom holds 51 percent of the consortiums shares. While I was head of the government, I had no knowledge of such a proposition and therefore had nothing to do with it, Schroeder said in reaction to the report, which has since been confirmed by a Finance Ministry spokesperson. The Russian gas giant said in December that it would hire Schroeder, sparking a controversy that several other reconversion bids had failed to ignite. Schroeders critics lambasted him for accepting the position. This affair stinks terribly, said Guido Westerwelle, head of the free market liberal opposition Free Democrat party, who has already been sued by Schroeder for previous attacks about this affair. He also said he would seek to clarify the issue with a parliamentary investigation if needed. Christian Wulff, a leader in current Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union and Schroeders successor as head of Lower Saxony, said the revelations were serious and required an explanation from the former chancellor. If Schroeder has any respect for himself, he must immediately resign his post on the supervisory board of the gas consortium, said Reinhard Butikofer, a leader of the Greens party, which was in coalition with the Schroeder government. A German interministerial commission approved the credit guarantee on October 24, while Schroeder was still head of the government, but just after the parliaments budget commission was informed of the deal, the newspaper said, quoting sources close to the new Merkel government. Posted by: ryuge 2006-04-02 |
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