Former German leader Gerhard Schroder receiving treatment for burnout

BERLIN: Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who has faced heavy criticism in recent years for his ties with Russia, is receiving treatment in a hospital for burnout, German news agency dpa reported Tuesday. The 80-year-old Schroder led Germany from 1998 to 2005. He was the leader of current chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left social democratic party from 1999 to 2004.
But his involvement with Russian state-owned energy companies and his reluctance after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine to distance himself wholeheartedly from Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has long had a friendly relationship, estranged him from the German political establishment.
On Tuesday, dpa cited a doctor's assessment that Schroder is "suffering from severe burnout syndrome with the typical signs of profound exhaustion and a pronounced lack of energy." It reported that Schroder's lawyer, Hans-Peter Huber, said he had gone into clinical treatment on the advice of the doctor.
Schroder was supposed to be questioned last month by a parliamentary commission of inquiry in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania into the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, whose board of directors he headed. But he didn't appear because of illness.
Nord Stream 2 never went into service and was damaged in underwater explosions in the Baltic Sea in September 2022. (AP) GRS GRS