As Russian missiles continue to devastate Ukraine, Germany’s disgraced former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder finds time to celebrate Vladimir Putin’s birthday. His latest Moscow pilgrimage is another reminder of the scandalous relationship between German political power and Russian energy money.

There are few spectacles quite so nauseating as a former democratic leader enthusiastically embracing the dictator whose aggression has brought death and destruction to Europe.

Yet there was Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s former Chancellor, grinning alongside Vladimir Putin at the Russian president’s 74th birthday celebrations, apparently oblivious to the moral obscenity of the occasion.

According to Reuters, Schröder visited Putin’s home in Moscow, where the two old friends were photographed smiling and shaking hands against a suitably cosy backdrop of traditional Russian furnishings.

How touching. While Ukrainians endure another year of Russian bombardment, Schröder enjoys the hospitality of the man responsible.

The photographs could scarcely provide a more damning illustration of how completely one of Germany’s former leaders has lost his moral compass.

From German Chancellor to Kremlin’s Favourite German

Schröder’s relationship with Putin has long since ceased to be merely an embarrassing personal friendship. It represents one of the most troubling examples of the revolving door between European political office and Russian commercial interests.

Having served as German Chancellor between 1998 and 2005, Schröder promptly embarked upon a remarkably lucrative second career in the Russian energy industry.

His involvement with Nord Stream was particularly scandalous.

While still Chancellor, Schröder championed the Baltic Sea gas pipeline linking Russia directly to Germany. Shortly after leaving office, he accepted a senior position with the consortium responsible for the project.

The arrangement raised an obvious and deeply uncomfortable question: had German energy policy been shaped exclusively by national interests, or had the groundwork also been laid for an exceptionally rewarding retirement?

There is no need to allege criminal wrongdoing to recognise the appalling appearance of a conflict of interest.

Schröder subsequently became chairman of the supervisory board of Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil giant, in 2017.

This was three years after Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea, when any responsible European statesman should already have understood the dangers of strengthening Moscow’s financial and strategic position.

Instead, Schröder continued to prosper within the Russian energy establishment.

Nord Stream: The Pipeline That Helped Putin

The Nord Stream controversy was never simply about natural gas.

It was about geopolitical leverage, European security and the extraordinary willingness of successive German governments to disregard warnings from Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Those countries understood precisely what Berlin preferred not to acknowledge: energy dependence on an authoritarian Russia was a strategic vulnerability.

Schröder became one of the most prominent advocates of precisely that dependence.

The Nord Stream 2 project subsequently became entangled in further controversy surrounding a foundation established in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, ostensibly for environmental purposes, which helped companies involved in completing the pipeline navigate American sanctions.

The foundation received €20 million from Nord Stream 2 AG. The affair prompted parliamentary scrutiny and questions about Russian corporate influence over German political decision-making.

Schröder’s involvement in the wider Nord Stream enterprise remains a central feature of that controversy.

No Shame, No Apology

Even Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 failed to produce the moral reckoning that Schröder’s conduct demanded.

He eventually relinquished his Rosneft position and declined a proposed Gazprom board appointment. His political reputation, however, was already in ruins.

The Bundestag stripped him of his parliamentary office and staff privileges. His own Social Democratic Party faced demands to expel him, although attempts to remove him ultimately failed.

Yet Schröder apparently remains incapable of recognising why his behaviour disgusts so many Germans.

His latest Moscow appearance has provoked outrage from Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose government described the birthday visit as profoundly immoral. SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil condemned it as completely unacceptable.

A Useful Friend for the Kremlin

There is another dimension to this disgrace.

Putin has previously suggested that Schröder could serve as an intermediary in negotiations concerning European security. European governments understandably rejected the proposal.

Why would Europe entrust its security to a man whose professional judgement has been so closely associated with Russian commercial interests?

Schröder’s latest Russian appointment, on the supervisory board of supermarket operator Hyperglobus, merely reinforces the impression that Moscow remains an irresistible attraction.

Perhaps he regards himself as a bridge between Russia and Germany. If so, it is a bridge built upon extraordinary political misjudgement.

Schröder is entitled to choose his friends. Europeans are equally entitled to judge him by those choices.

History will remember that, while Ukraine fought for its survival, a former German Chancellor travelled to Moscow to celebrate the birthday of Vladimir Putin, the man directing its destruction.

It is difficult to imagine a more humiliating epitaph for a once-powerful European statesman.

Main Image: Kremlin.ru

By refusing to recognise Vladimir Putin’s newly elected State Duma, the European Parliament has drawn an important line against the Kremlin’s authoritarianism. However, despite Europe possessing enormous economic and diplomatic leverage, the question still remains whether the European Commission and member states are prepared to turn condemnation into meaningful consequences.

The European Parliament has delivered an unusually unequivocal denunciation of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the newly constituted State Duma following September’s parliamentary elections.

In a resolution adopted by 482 votes to 41, with 39 abstentions, MEPs rejected the elections of 18–20 September as neither free nor fair, condemning what they described as the deliberate destruction of Russia’s remaining democratic institutions.

The resolution is significant not simply for its language, but for its demands. Parliament wants European governments to refuse official contact with the new Duma, impose additional sanctions on those responsible for repression and electoral manipulation, and reject any normalisation of relations with Moscow until fundamental conditions concerning Ukraine have been met.

It is a substantial political statement. Whether it becomes an effective European policy is another matter.

Putin’s democracy: an election without a choice

The circumstances surrounding the September ballot demonstrate why MEPs reached their conclusions.

According to Parliament, there were no genuine alternative candidates, no free media, no credible independent observers and no meaningful political freedoms.

Opponents of Putin’s regime have been imprisoned, driven into exile or, in some cases, murdered.

Under such conditions, elections cease to provide a credible means of holding government accountable. Instead, they risk becoming exercises designed to confer an appearance of democratic legitimacy upon an entrenched authoritarian system.

Particularly disturbing was Moscow’s decision to conduct voting in occupied Ukrainian territory, including parts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

Parliament also condemned the organisation of voting in Moldova’s Transnistrian region and Georgia’s Abkhazia and Tskhinvali/South Ossetia regions.

These are not merely procedural irregularities. They raise fundamental questions about sovereignty, territorial integrity and Russia’s willingness to respect internationally recognised borders.

The Parliament’s refusal to recognise the new Duma therefore carries considerable diplomatic significance.

Europe has the economic power. Does it have the political determination?

Yet there is an uncomfortable contrast between the Parliament’s forthright language and the difficulties European governments repeatedly encounter when attempting to strengthen economic pressure on Moscow.

The European Commission has played a central role in preparing successive sanctions packages. However, proposals can become entangled in negotiations between member states determined to protect particular commercial interests.

As EU Today has repeatedly argued in its coverage of Russia’s aggression and European sanctions policy, the effectiveness of restrictions depends not simply on their announcement, but on their enforcement.

Europe possesses enormous economic leverage through its financial markets, technology industries, maritime services and access to international trade.

There is a strong case for examining whether that leverage is being employed as consistently as possible against the networks sustaining Russia’s war economy.

The Commission cannot act entirely independently: major sanctions decisions require agreement among member states. Nevertheless, its responsibility for proposing measures, coordinating implementation and pursuing infringements gives it considerable influence.

The central criticism is therefore not that Brussels has failed to act, but that European action remains vulnerable to political compromise, uneven enforcement and commercial exceptions.

Target the machinery of repression

The Parliament’s resolution offers a particularly practical starting point. MEPs want additional restrictive measures against judges, prosecutors, officials of Russia’s financial monitoring service, Rosfinmonitoring, members of the Central Election Commission and individuals involved in organising staged elections in occupied territories.

This represents a more targeted approach than indiscriminate economic punishment.

Those who administer political persecution, facilitate repression or organise unlawful electoral processes should face appropriate individual accountability, subject to evidence and legal safeguards.

The resolution also calls for action against transnational repression, recognising that Moscow’s efforts to intimidate opponents can extend beyond Russia’s borders.

Such measures would complement existing sanctions rather than replace them.

No return to business as usual

Perhaps the resolution’s most consequential element concerns the conditions for restoring relations with Russia.

Parliament insists there can be no normalisation without a just and lasting peace for Ukraine, full Russian withdrawal, the release of prisoners of war, the return of forcibly deported Ukrainian children, reparations and accountability for crimes committed.

It also opposes normalising Russian participation in international sporting and cultural events.

These are demanding conditions, and their implementation would require sustained diplomatic coordination.

Nevertheless, the resolution establishes a clear principle: restoring ordinary relations cannot be separated from the consequences of Russia’s aggression.

It also importantly distinguishes Putin’s regime from Russian democratic forces, calling for continued support for those opposing the war and seeking a democratic future.

The real test begins now

The European Parliament has articulated a comprehensive position combining electoral legitimacy, territorial sovereignty, individual accountability and Ukraine’s rights.

The challenge for the Commission and European governments is to determine how these demands can be implemented effectively, consistently and lawfully.

Europe has the resources to exert considerable pressure on Moscow. What remains contested is how far its governments are prepared to accept the economic and diplomatic costs of doing so.

Condemning Putin’s electoral system is one thing. Ensuring that those responsible for repression and aggression face meaningful consequences is quite another.

The European Parliament has made its position unmistakable. The Commission and member states now face the more difficult task of demonstrating that European economic power can reinforce European democratic principles.

The European Commission Wants More Bureaucrats – Europe Wants More Results

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For years, the European Union has struggled with a peculiar contradiction in its dealings with China. The EU is one of the largest and wealthiest trading blocs on earth, capable of determining access to a market of some 450 million relatively affluent consumers, yet it frequently conducts foreign policy as though it were the supplicant.

Hilde Vautmans, the Belgian Renew Europe MEP and European Parliament rapporteur on EU-China political relations, is right to challenge this timidity.

Her report, debated this week in Strasbourg, does not advocate severing relations with Beijing. Nor should it. China is too economically important and too influential on questions ranging from climate change to international security for Europe simply to close the door.

But dialogue must not become an alternative to action.

“Europe has economic power. It’s time to use it,” Vautmans told Parliament ahead of the vote. That sentence ought to be pinned above every desk in the European Commission dealing with China.

The figures make the case brutally clear. In 2025 the EU imported €559.4 billion of goods from China while exporting just €199.6 billion in the opposite direction. The resulting deficit was €359.8 billion — almost €1 billion every day.

As EU Today reported recently, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has herself warned of a potential “second China shock”, with subsidised Chinese industrial production threatening European manufacturers.

Fine words. But Beijing has heard fine words before.

The Commission’s preferred formulation remains “de-risking, not decoupling”. There is sense in that distinction. Nobody seriously proposes shutting down trade with the world’s second-largest economy. But de-risking becomes meaningless if every risk identified is followed by another dialogue, another working group and another opportunity to postpone difficult decisions.

Indeed, the Commission acknowledges that European companies operating in China face regulatory obstacles, inadequate intellectual-property protection, restrictions on data flows and pressures associated with technology transfer.

Europe possesses formidable weapons with which to respond: anti-dumping duties, anti-subsidy measures, foreign-investment screening, the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the Anti-Coercion Instrument, procurement restrictions and controls on strategically sensitive technologies.

These instruments should not be deployed indiscriminately. But neither should they sit polished in the armoury while Beijing exploits European openness.

Vautmans is particularly right to connect economics with security and values. China cannot reasonably expect privileged access to European markets while helping sustain the Russian war machine. The European Parliament’s own research service describes Beijing as a “decisive enabler and dual-use provider”, including through goods entering Russian weapons and drone supply chains.

If Chinese companies materially assist Russia’s ability to wage war against Ukraine, Europe should be prepared to impose a direct economic price. The same principle should apply to human rights.

EU Today has warned repeatedly that Brussels’ ritualised engagement with Beijing risks becoming precisely that: ritual.

We reported earlier that the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue risks losing credibility, pointing to the continuing imprisonment of Swedish citizen Gui Minhai and Uyghur academic and Sakharov Prize laureate Ilham Tohti. After round upon round of discussions, Beijing has learnt that European expressions of “deep concern” are inexpensive things to endure.

The problem is hardly new. Years ago, EU Today highlighted calls for concrete EU action over goods associated with forced labour in China, including demands for tougher restrictions on entities implicated in abuses against Uyghurs.

Yet repression continues. In March this year China adopted its new Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress. The European Parliament subsequently condemned what it described as intensified repression and assimilation affecting Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minorities, by the overwhelming margin of 439 votes to 52.

Europe therefore faces a straightforward question. What is the purpose of economic power if it is never translated into political influence?

The EU should not attempt to bully China. Nor should it abandon diplomacy. Vautmans is correct that channels of communication must remain open. But reciprocity must become something more than a word appearing in communiqués.

Where China closes markets to European companies, Europe should be prepared to restrict equivalent access. Where state subsidies distort competition, Brussels should respond rapidly with trade-defence measures. Where strategic dependencies expose Europe to political coercion, alternative supply chains must be built. Where Chinese entities support Russia’s military-industrial complex, sanctions should follow. And where companies benefit from forced labour or serious human-rights abuses, access to the European marketplace should carry consequences.

That is not protectionism. It is leverage.

Totalitarian states understand leverage perfectly well. China routinely uses access to its enormous market as an instrument of statecraft. Europe, by contrast, too often behaves as though exploiting its own commercial strength would somehow represent a failure of diplomacy. It represents precisely the opposite.

The European Commission has spent years discovering that China is simultaneously a partner, competitor and “systemic rival”. It is time to move beyond discovering the obvious.

Vautmans has identified the essential point. Europe already possesses economic power on a scale few countries can ignore. What it appears to lack is the political confidence to use it.

Main Image: by Valentine ZELER, © European Union 2026 – Source : EP