The Second Season of our documentary series. Explore. Starts november twenty fourth. Whatever happened to Martin Schulz the former leader of germanys social democrats who challenged angola muckle last year for the chancery and failed spectacularly well hes my guest this week here in berlin why did you Campaign Fail and how does he react to criticism of his time as president of the European Parliament. But intrudes welcome to conference on thank you. Looking back on your campaign to become chancellor you admitted that you had made stupid mistakes you said miscalculations but the biggest problem was trust wasnt it you broke the promises why. And you in the complaint i thing it was not a lack of trust it was. A very specific atmosphere going to america tried successfully to escape from what we need in the Election Campaign open confrontation the competition of arguments for the best solutions and was very promising not to enter a coalition with the conservatives after the campaign yes you
went on to become parliament s special rapporteur on transparency accountability integrity he said that in twenty sixteen whenever the special committee that was set up to look at these breaches found evidence of a breach it reported it to you because you were empowered to act only you didn t and i didn t concrete cases which would raise the wrong. gerald hafner former chair of that committee also said in twenty forty that you never followed up on complaints not a single one of these cases has had any conclusion he said any consequences and that is the end result of the tougher rules adopted by the european parliament i think we haven t done parliament all the citizens or european democracy any favors it is wrong they reported mr have have no came personally to me i remember and we agreed about a lot of different cases mr giggles never from the way to my office but always everybody to his website with allegations against me personally i
you came from right wing tendencies of the earth are you so it s not valid as a directly elected parliament the only directly elected institution in the european union the european parliament if the european union is not sufficiently democratic i agree but this is not especially the european parliament the other way around this is the only directly elected institution in the european therefore this is completely mons but the elections that brought you to the presidency twice these were decided behind closed doors were there was an election it was decided beforehand who was going to win i had to run in the parliament that i had to to get a majority in the bottom in twenty twenty fourteen want to leave it behind closed doors you know in twenty fourteen you actually cover a president of the parliament you must run in the parliament and you must go i enjoy it i understand that and you both get the druggy of the parliamentarians how can you say this was behind closed doors but it was an ope
about extravagance why i was the first one who was criticised by all this pre-decimal never criticised for it this was because i was a political figure and people and trying to make the european parliament more influential more powerful and then you earn also such a tax i didn t invent it i earn the then by the way my predecessor had more people in the stuff than me i would use that when i started in two thousand and twelve or reduce the size of most of the shows a year never never by the way never these people took note of that the decision i reduced the members of my staff in relation to my predecessors which should say year ago you advocated a united states of europe a new constitution for europe you said any country that didn t adopt it should have to leave the european union by this draconian stance who wants who wants a united states of europe these days me for example i want that i suggested because
yourself on the federal state spending a part in federal politics putting yourself back as a candidate in the future as a candidate no more now committed for what chancellor now that s gone is that i think the. question for the time being is not who will run the s.p.d. for the next election campaign how to in proof the situation of the party this is the biggest question for the time being but you have specific views on the. as everybody is the party listening to you i hope so let s talk if we may about your time as president of the european parliament in the election campaign you accused of committing an attack on democracy that was one of the criticisms you had of but you presided in europe over an institution that was widely criticized for its democratic deficit wasn t it especially by the murdoch press in the united kingdom not just the most of most of the critics coming from