Russia involvement of the SPD
Pressure on Schwesig increases
04/17/2022, 09:10 am
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s prime minister wanted to avoid possible US sanctions with a specially established foundation. Now the Greens are demanding full transparency from Schwesig and an honest examination of their Russia policy. CDU external expert Röttgen goes even further.
CDU foreign affairs expert Norbert Röttgen suggested that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig resign after recent reports about her ties with Russia. “If the circumstances recently described in the media are true, then Ms. Schwesig cannot remain in office; that is completely impossible,” said the member of the Bundestag to the editorial network Germany.
Schwesig had colluded with a Russian company and consistently and deliberately deceived the public, he judged. Referring to other SPD politicians such as former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Röttgen added: “It is now the SPD’s responsibility to systematically work through these long-standing, secret entanglements with the Russian state and with companies controlled by Russia.”
The Greens member of the Bundestag, Claudia Müller, who comes from the state in the north-east, said: “I expect that Ms. Schwesig will create full transparency and deal honestly with her previous Russia policy.”
Committee of Inquiry in May
The opposition factions CDU, Greens and FDP in the Schwerin state parliament announced last week that a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the long-standing contacts between Schwesig and the SPD with the Russian state-owned company Gazprom is to be set up in May. He should also clarify the circumstances of the establishment and work of the foundation for climate and environmental protection in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, financed with millions from Russian gas deals. The foundation was launched in early 2021 to help complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline despite threats of US sanctions.
On Tuesday in Schwerin, Schwesig emphasized that the decision to set up the foundation had been taken in the red-black state government on the initiative of the then energy minister and today’s interior minister Christian level from the SPD. “Of course there were also talks with Nord Stream,” admitted the head of government. “But we made our own decisions in the state government and in the state parliament and nobody else.”