Advising the public sector caused controversial debates, especially during the term of office of the federal governments under Gerhard Schröder: In 2003, for example, it became known that Roland Berger had been awarded several contracts by the Federal Ministry of Defense without a tender. Although these were not legally objectionable, a revision of the awarding procedure followed. In 2004, the opposition in the German Bundestag criticized the payment of millions in fees to Roland Berger by the Federal Employment Agency (BA). They denounced the execution of core tasks by third parties, while BA head Florian Gerster regarded external expertise as indispensable for modernizing the agency. On the talk show Sabine Christiansen, Christian Wulff accused Roland Berger ad person in 2004 of providing expert opinions for the SPD state governments of Lower Saxony at exorbitant fees, while state parliamentary motions by the Greens were comparatively more substantial. Roland Berger himself sensed a political campaign, especially from the CDU, that would damage the economy.