Germany defends Schroeder against "prostitute" remark (Extra)

Jun 12, 2007, 19:39 GMT

Berlin - The German government on Tuesday defended former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder against a harsh verbal attack from a prominent US congressman, calling his comparison of Schroeder to a prostitute 'unseemly.'

Congressman Tom Lantos, who chairs the House of Representatives foreign relations committee, made the remarks at the dedication of a memorial to victims of communism in Washington DC.

He charged that Schroeder's close business ties to Russia's energy sector amounted to 'political prostitution' that would even offend people who sell their bodies for money.

German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm rejected the remark 'clearly and decisively.'

'This is an unseemly level of discourse with a former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,' Wilhelm told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa in Berlin.

Schroeder's party, the Social Democrats (SPD), also jumped to the former chancellor's defence. SPD general secretary Hubertus Heil said that if the remarks were correct, they were simply a 'sign of political stupidity and tastelessness.'

Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who fled his native Hungary after the communist takeover, attacked both Schroeder and former French president Jacques Chirac for failing to support the United States in its fight against the next wave of tyranny, Islamic fascism, after all the US had done in saving Europe from Nazism and communism.

The congressman provoked gasps of amusement and surprise in the crowd of several hundred when he then said he would like to call Schroeder 'a political prostitute, now that he's taking big cheques from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected.'

During his final weeks in office in 2005, Schroeder signed an agreement between Germany and Russia to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to supply gas directly to Germany.

After leaving office, he became chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline, which is 51-per-cent owned by Russian state natural gas company Gazprom - a move that provoked outrage in Germany.

Russia has used its energy reserves as a political chip in its continuing bid for hegemony in eastern Europe, and has come under severe criticism for repression of press and other freedoms.