Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Schröder (born 7 April 1944 in Mossenberg) served as the seventh Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1998 to 2005, leading a "red-green" coalition between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Alliance 90/The Greens. He previously served as Minister-President of Lower Saxony from 1990 to 1998.

Schröder's chancellorship is associated with several defining policy choices. Domestically, his government launched Agenda 2010 in 2003, a package of labor-market and welfare reforms that included the Hartz IV legislation merging unemployment and social assistance. The reforms remain controversial: credited by some economists with improving German competitiveness, they also fractured the SPD's left wing and contributed to the founding of the Left Party (Die Linke).

In foreign policy, Schröder backed NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo — Germany's first major combat deployment since 1945 — and authorized the Bundeswehr's participation in ISAF in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. He publicly opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, aligning with French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a stance that strained relations with the George W. Bush administration but proved electorally popular.

Schröder called early federal elections in 2005 after the SPD lost the North Rhine-Westphalia state election; the vote produced a narrow CDU/CSU plurality, and Angela Merkel succeeded him as chancellor in November 2005.

Since leaving office, Schröder has been heavily criticized for his close business ties to Russian state-owned energy companies. He chaired the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG from 2005 and later took positions linked to Rosneft and Nord Stream 2 AG. Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he faced widespread calls to resign these posts; the European Parliament passed a resolution in May 2022 urging sanctions against him if he did not step down. The SPD initiated proceedings to expel him, which ultimately did not succeed, though his party privileges were curtailed.