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No, this is business as usual in the UK, France, the USA and more. You usually don't hear about it it because of how accepted it is. And that is because compared to corruption in Pakistan, China and yes Ukraine and so on it is tiny. There is no non-corrupt country but most of the wealthy Western ones have fairly minimal levels like said Hunter Biden issues. The amount of effort it would require to eradicate is just not worth it. And of course it's not like elites whose families benefit from it would want to. Even if they are temporarily on the other side of it for short term political gain. Trump does it even more directly with Jared and Ivanka and so on. It isn't exceptional, it is the norm.
Putting relatives of people with power on boards and in cushy executive positions is endemic almost everywhere. That might not make it ok, but please do not underestimate how common it is in "normal" countries.
As an eastern European, we used to look up to Germany when it came to political culture, and they seem fairly intolerant with corruption.
Do they do this too ? Or is e.g. Schröder involvement in Gazprom only a scandal because it's politically advantageous to bash Russians ?
Yes.
Since 2018 an investigative committee organized by Germany's Federal Audit Office is looking into how contracts worth tens of millions of euros were awarded to external consultancy firms.[109][110][70] The auditing office has found several irregularities in how the contracts were awarded. During the investigation, two of von der Leyen's phones were confiscated, but data from both phones has been deleted before being returned to the defense ministry.[111] In turn, opposition lawmaker Tobias Linder has filed a criminal complaint against von der Leyen suspecting deliberate destruction of evidence relevant for the case.
and
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24504386
Germans are in my experience particularly sensitive to it, so it usually is smaller scale and more hidden. For example see this Quora answer about corruption and nepotism in Germany:
"On a lower scale, there is nepotism. In a very subtile and hidden way. You might not get your own daughter a nice job in the authority you work as a a head of department. But you might ask your fellow who works for an other authority to give her a job. Off course she has to be qualified, and she has to pass some tests.
If you are an executive in a big company, you like one colleague quite much and want that he earns a little more money, you just create a new job for him. Off course he has to be qualified and he has to pass some tests."
Germany is in my experience not that corrupt, but not that corrupt in a wealthy nation still can involve billions of euro.
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