Elmar Brok

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elmar Brok at the party conference of the CDU Germany 2016
Elmar Brok, 2019

Elmar Heinrich Brok (born May 14, 1946 in Verl ) is a German politician ( CDU ) and Vice President of the Christian Democratic International . He was a member of the European Parliament from 1980 to 2019 and chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs from 1999 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2017 .

Brok was also President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) from 2013 to 2018 . He was also chairman of the European Democracy Fund (EED).

Life

Education and employment

After graduating from high school Theodorianum in Paderborn in 1966 , Brok studied law and political science at the University of Edinburgh without a degree . After completing a radio traineeship , he worked as a radio and newspaper journalist. Since 1992 Brok was the European Commissioner of the Bertelsmann AG Executive Board and headed Bertelsmann's lobby office in Brussels. From 2004 to 2011 he was Senior Vice President Media Development for the group.

Party career

Brok was initially involved in the Junge Union and was its deputy federal chairman from 1973 to 1981. Since 1994 he has been a member of the state executive committee of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia and since 2004 of the CDU federal executive committee . From 1996 to June 23, 2012 Brok was chairman of the CDU district association Ostwestfalen-Lippe . Brok has headed the CDU Federal Committee for Foreign, Security and European Policy since 1989.

Brok is the foreign policy coordinator of the European People's Party (EPP) and is a member of the EPP board.

After initially being Vice President from 1993 to 2002, Brok has been President of the European Union of Christian Democratic Workers (EUCDW) since 2002.

Member of Parliament

Candidate poster for the 1984 European elections

In June 1980 Brok became a member of the European Parliament as a successor. He was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, a deputy member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and a deputy member of the European Committee of the German Bundestag.

Since the European elections in 2009 , Elmar Brok was the foreign policy spokesman for the EPP Group and a member of the EPP Group Executive. Elmar Brok was chairman of the inter-parliamentary delegation to the US Congress and chairman of the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue. Elmar Brok has been a member of the EP delegation to the People's Republic of China since 2012.

From 1999 to 2007 and 2012 to 2017 he was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defense Policy .

As a representative of the European Parliament, Brok was involved in the intergovernmental conferences on the review of the Maastricht Treaty (1994/1995), the Amsterdam Treaty (1996/1997), the Nice Treaty (2000), the EU Constitutional Treaty (2003/2004) and the Lisbon Treaty (2007). 2001 to 2002 Brok was chairman of the EPP group in the Convention for the Constitution of the European Union .

From 1999 to 2007 Brok was the main rapporteur for the enlargement of the European Union .

In September 2010 he was involved in the founding of the Spinelli Group , which advocates European federalism .

Brok was a member of the Europa-Union parliamentary group European Parliament and a member of the parliamentary working group of the A Soul for Europe initiative .

In the nominations for the state list of the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU for the 2019 European elections , Brok was no longer nominated at the beginning of January 2019. The 72-year-old lost the sixth place on the list, which is considered safe, to the Lower Rhine state parliament member Stefan Berger . Brok then decided not to apply for another place on the list. His non-nomination caused internal party irritation, especially since the CDU state chairman and North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Armin Laschet had vehemently advocated Brok.

In 2011, the Legal Committee of the European Parliament unanimously voted against a motion by the Bielefeld public prosecutor's office to lift Brok's immunity for tax evasion proceedings.

In 2018 Brok voted against the proposal of the European Parliament to introduce transnational electoral lists for elections to the European Parliament.

Other engagement

From 1999 to 2006 Brok was President of the Europa-Union Deutschland. Peter Altmaier was elected as his successor and Brok himself as honorary president on December 10, 2006. Brok is also deputy chairman of the board of trustees of the Institute for European Politics (IEP), co-chair of the German-Hungarian forum, member of the presidium of the German Society for Foreign Policy and member of the board of trustees of the Development and Peace Foundation (SEF). He is also chairman of the European Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Policy Network , which z. B. actively operated the TTIP project in the European parliaments. His former employer, Bertelsmann AG, is also a business member of this network.

At the local level, he is the chairman of the board of trustees of the St. Hedwig-Heimvolkshochschule and sits on the foundation board of the Marienschule Bielefeld.

Elmar Brok is often interviewed by the radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk as a conversation partner on current topics.

Activity in Ukraine

In December 2012 Brok traveled to Kiev and stood up for the then imprisoned politician Yulia Tymoshenko . In connection with this, various Ukrainian media reported that Brok had also visited a brothel during his visit to Kiev and made derogatory comments about Ukrainian women. On March 14, 2013, Brok was attacked, beaten and verbally abused by an activist from the Ukrainian feminist group Femen in Brussels under the motto “Ukraine is not your brothel” ( Eng. Ukraine is not your brothel ). Brok denied the allegations of sexist behavior against him. The allegations are baseless and part of a campaign by the Ukrainian ruling party, Party of Regions , that Femen himself has been disinformation and is being used against him. The EU embassy in Ukraine described the allegations against Brok as "nonsense" and condemned the attack on him. The Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov also apologized to Brok, described the action as a smear campaign and denied any involvement of his government.

In his capacity as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, Brok worked repeatedly in Kiev during the crisis in Ukraine since November 2013 (“ Euromaidan ”). In this context, Brok spoke out in favor of linking EU financial aid to Ukraine to a constitutional amendment and an electoral reform. The power of the Ukrainian parliament should be strengthened and that of the president weakened. The electoral law in Ukraine also had to be revised, otherwise the risk of renewed election fraud would be too great. In an interview on February 7, 2014, Brok stated that, in his opinion, Vitali Klitschko was "the right president" and Yatsenjuk "the ideal prime minister" for Ukraine. In a statement to the ARD magazine Panorama , he described the role of the right-wing extremist party Swoboda as that of a party that had at least contributed significantly to overthrowing a dictator and which, regardless of its past, now also supports the rule of law in Ukraine use.

In this context, Brok was seen as an interventionist and critics accused Brok of representing unilateral positions directed against Russia and of being a “falcon” or “(transatlantic) agitator”.

Lobbying

Brok was accused in 2001 by journalist Peter Mühlbauer of representing the interests of his employer Bertelsmann. It is claimed that he was instrumental in the creation of the EU copyright directive , which, according to a Bertelsmann manager, strengthens the position of media companies. Another accusation is that in the draft Treaty on a Constitution for Europe Brok had enforced that the right to “ intellectual property ” was absolutely set in the draft constitution and was not subject to any social obligation (Article II-77, Paragraph 2). The constitutional lawyer Hans Herbert von Arnim referred to Brok's activity several times as "legal corruption".

Brok explains that he has always been transparent about his professional activity and publicly and beyond the rules of the EP and has not exercised such alleged influence.

His statement that he separates mandate and private business interests "razor-sharp" was doubted by Brussels correspondents who leaked internal Bertelsmann papers from 1994. There were allegations that he had used his relationships to prevent a permanent freelance employee of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Hajo Friedrich , who had previously reported critically about him, from future reporting. Brok called the FAZ publisher Günther Nonnenmacher about this . After Nonnenmacher spoke to the FAZ office in Brussels, Friedrich was no longer allowed to write for the political department, as he had occasionally done before. Nonnenmacher and Brok deny this.

Between 2004 and the end of May 2011, Elmar Brok held the position of Senior Vice President Media Development at Bertelsmann AG. According to Bertelsmann, Brok received over € 5,000 a month for this lobbying activity.

Private

Elmar Brok is married, has three children and lives with his family in Bielefeld-Heepen . He has had a glass eye on his right side since he became a child with cancer .

Honors

Brok was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit (2009), the Great Gold Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria , the Order of Merit “Grand Officer of Luxembourg” , in 2005 the Commander's Cross of the Order of Lithuania and the Estonian Cross of Merit II Class of the Order of Terra Mariana . On May 24, 2013 Brok was awarded the Medal for European Communication from the Dragomanov State Pedagogical University (Kiev / Ukraine). Since May 18, 2018 he has been honorary professor (for life) at the Eastern European "Lesja Ukrainka National University Lutsk".

In 2007 the Tobacco Forum named him Pipe Smoker of the Year .

In March 2012 Brok received the negative award "Rusty Secateurs" awarded by the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation in the Herford district for his negative attitude towards the national park project in the region and for his "lack of responsibility" for species protection. Brok received the award personally.

Web links

Commons : Elmar Brok  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Personally - Elmar Brok ... is the longest serving EU member. Rheinische Post , July 3, 2014, accessed on October 26, 2015 .
  2. Stefan Kaufmann, Désirée Linde and Kathrin Witsch: Appearance in the EU Parliament - "Tsipras pulls like a pop star". Handelsblatt , July 8, 2015, accessed on October 26, 2015 .
  3. The EU is the answer to the world wars. Elmar Brok, May 7, 2015, accessed October 26, 2015 .
  4. ↑ List of Abitur graduates 1910–1985, editor: Association of former Theodorians , 1985, p. 47.
  5. ^ Jürgen Kaube: Additional income. Care level one . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 11, 2005.
  6. Board of Directors . In: Christian Democratic Union of Germany . ( cdu.de [accessed December 10, 2016]).
  7. https://books.google.de/books?id=7CFpDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=Elmar+Brok+1980+nachger%C3%BCckt&source=bl&ots=ZjZBBTxorm&sig=kmuMjHh7mlPH2FqUnwKZPVlF8qA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp1v-0n-DfAhXKJ1AKHeo7C3UQ6AEwC3oECAEQAQ#v = onepage & q = Elmar% 20Brok% 201980% 20nachger% C3% BCckt & f = false
  8. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/de/1263/ELMAR_BROK/history/1
  9. Reiner Burger : Accidentally debacle. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 8, 2019, accessed on the same day.
  10. Rejection of the motion to waive the immunity of Elmar Brok in full
  11. Brok rejects transnational lists for the European Parliament
  12. Elmar Brok (CDU) on the union dispute - "There is a lot of leeway to prevent the break". Accessed May 31, 2019 (German).
  13. German ambassador is supposed to leave Venezuela - Brok: "Guaidó is the only one with democratic legitimation". Accessed May 31, 2019 (German).
  14. Catalonia's Strive for Independence - "A Really Historic Confrontation". Accessed May 31, 2019 (German).
  15. Evrodeputat Elmar Brok oskandalilsya v Ukraine po polnoj program , on obozrevatel.com from January 28, 2013.
  16. Femen website, entry from March 22, 2013 ( Memento from May 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  17. Naked attacks Elmar Brok in front of the EU Parliament , Neue Westfälische from March 23, 2013.
  18. ^ Statement of the EU Delegation to Ukraine on the personal attack of a FEMEN activist against MEP Elmar Brok , document of March 22, 2013.
  19. Ukraine apologizes to CDU MEP Elmar Brok. Mindener Tageblatt, April 4, 2013, accessed April 4, 2013 .
  20. CDU wants to bind aid package for Ukraine to constitutional amendment , Die Zeit of February 5, 2014.
  21. You should know: We see everything , Wiener Zeitung of February 7, 2014.
  22. Putsch in Kiev: What role do the fascists play? , Panorama, March 6, 2014.
  23. ^ Analysis: The Ukraine crisis on German talk shows. In: bpb.de. November 14, 2015, accessed November 14, 2015 .
  24. "We have to make it clear that we are ready to go to war". In: heise.de. April 24, 2015, accessed on November 14, 2015 : “The remaining falcons among the MPs were Elmar Brok (CDU), the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the EU Parliament, the Latvian MP Sandra Kalniete and the Lithuanian MP Gabrielius Landsbergis, among others rapporteurs for the EU Parliament on EU-Russia relations. "
  25. Geopolitical Background Ukraine Conflict ll. Lieutenant Colonel a. D. Jochen Scholz . In: antikriegTV (YouTube). August 15, 2014, accessed on December 10, 2016 (from minute 33.45).
  26. The equal garbage can. In: jungewelt.de. April 29, 2016, accessed December 10, 2016 .
  27. Playing with fire. In: Unser-zeit.de. October 28, 2016, accessed December 10, 2016 .
  28. Peter Mühlbauer: Lex Bertelsmann before the second hurdle .
  29. ^ Peter Mühlbauer: Constitutional enemies celebrate in Berlin .
  30. ^ Hajo Friedrich: Additional income in the twilight ( memento from June 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ): In: FAZ, January 11, 2005.
  31. Bertelsmann and DER SPIEGEL
  32. 2018 declaration by Elmar Brok about his financial income
  33. Droste meets Brok - the debate after 38 years of radio silence . In: Neue Westfälische, April 3, 2017, accessed October 30, 2019.
  34. Honorary professor at the University of Lutsk (Ukraine)
  35. ^ "Owl" environmental award for Friedel Heuwinkel, "Rusty Secateurs" to Elmar Brok , Herford district, accessed on January 22, 2019