Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor turned advocate for the Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom, said on Thursday he would be paid 250,000 euros (US$303,000) a year as chairman of the committee of shareholders of a controversial project to pipe Russian gas directly to Germany.
The north European gas pipeline (NEGP) will link Gazprom's massive network and abundant reserves directly to Germany. Schroeder came in for intense criticism in Germany when he accepted a post on the Gazprom board just after leaving office.
His opponents suggested that his close ties with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had both helped usher the project into existence and secured him a leading role on its board.
His appointment was seen as a public relations coup for the monopoly, lending western respectability to an industry still struggling with its international image.
Schroeder let slip his salary in Moscow on Thursday at which he seemed rattled and lacking his usual smoothness before journalists.
The press conference was due to last an hour but was over in 20 minutes.
He parried further questions about the ethics of his new job by stressing the need for the pipe.
"The pipeline is not aimed against anyone. It allows us to ensure the reliable supply of gas to Europe," he said.
He denied there was anything inappropriate about his post.
The NEGP will deliver cheap gas to Germany, and possibly Britain, when it is extended. It will travel from the Russian port of Vyborg to Greifswald in Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing the Baltic states and Poland, which used to receive fees for the fuel's passage.
The NEGP is a joint venture between Gazprom, the German energy firm E.ON and BASF, the German conglomerate.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS