"Politicians and the media have spread much nonsense recently," Schroeder told Tuesday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based daily. "I am only 61 years old; I want to work and not stay at home and get on my wife's nerves."

Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Schroeder last Friday to head the advisory board of the The Northern European Gas Pipeline (NEGP), a German-Russian consortium building an underwater natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Germany. The former chancellor had pushed the project along with Putin during his last weeks in office.

Schroeder's new job, less than a month after he left politics, has sparked outrage in and out of Germany.

Critics say Schroeder shouldn't take a job at a project he has supported while in office as the allegation lies near that he did so to secure a cozy post-politician life. Criticism is further fueled by the fact that the new underwater pipeline -- according to experts -- mainly benefits Russian energy giant Gazprom, and not so much German consumers.

The $5 billion project, which will likely have cost much more once the pipeline starts delivery in 2010, is far more expensive than modernizing existing landlines through Poland, Belarus and Lithuania would have cost, observers say. However the above-mentioned countries cash in significant transfer fees, and Gazprom would rather do without paying those.

As for Schroeder's salary, the German press has speculated much -- it has him earning from $250,000 up to $1.2 million a year.

"Those sums are completely made up and surely way too high," Schroeder told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, adding it was a "question of honor" to join the pipeline project he deemed important to secure Germany's energy future. Schroeder said he would take legal steps against the reports.

However the opposition hasn't stopped blasting him since Friday. Even inside his Social Democratic Party, lawmakers have criticized the move, which sparked a discussion to possibly write ethical codes for retired politicians into Germany's constitution. The pro-business Free Democrats have called for a discussion in parliament this week and want to push a waiting period into law that would forbid high-ranking politicians to enter the business world in the first two years after their retirement.

Further adding to the allegations that Schroeder's job might be a 'thank you' from Moscow is the appointment of an alleged former communist spy as chief executive officer of the consortium.

Matthias Warnig -- according to media reports he denies -- has until 1989 been a high-ranking member of the communist East German intelligence service Stasi. Warnig in recent years served as the Dresdner Bank's head in Russia.

The Dresdner Bank was the first German bank to open a branch in Russia in 1993. Warnig, according to the business publication Manager Magazin secured the deal in St. Petersburg, after meeting a young city official named Vladimir Putin. Warnig and Putin became close friends since then, others say Warnig knew Putin from his days as a young KGB agent in Dresden. Both men deny such reports.

Schroder as well is one of Putin's close friends: He has been to Moscow not only on official visits, but also on private invitations to birthday parties for the Russian president.

German-Russian ties reached an all-time high under Schroeder, at the time much to the dismay of new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who as an opposition leader criticized Schroeder's tendency to close both eyes when it came to the questionable Russian human and political rights record.

Vienna's Der Standard wrote in an editorial: "While criticism was expressed elsewhere about Putin's Chechnya policy or the smashing of the Yukos oil concern and elimination of its boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Schroeder was still calling Putin a 'flawless democrat.'"

Schroeder need not "confine himself to writing his memoirs", the paper continued, "but no chancellor before (him) has managed so quickly and so insolently to take up privately where he has left off politically."

The Washington Post called the move "Schroeder's sell-out," and said Merkel should base German-Russian foreign policy "on something other than Mr. Schroeder's private interests."

Others have defended the former chancellor, who three weeks ago took on his first job in the private sector as an adviser to Swiss publisher Ringier.

Frank Bsirske, head of German 2.5 million-member strong trade union Verdi, told the daily Berlinier Zeitung if Schroeder used his new job to further German interests over energy security, then he would see "nothing wrong with it."

Source: United Press International

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