Hans-Peter Martin

Hans-Peter Martin (born August 11, 1957 in Bregenz ) is an Austrian journalist and non-fiction author . In 2004 he was the founder of the Party List Dr. Martin and from 1999 to 2014 member of the European Parliament .

Journalistic career

Martin studied law and political science at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in 1984. iur.

In 1978 he worked as an unskilled worker in the FM Hämmerle textile factory and wrote the book Nachtschicht about it . A company report .

In 1980 he worked as a dishwasher for a season at the Hotel Klosterbräu in Seefeld and wrote a series of articles about it for the Austrian magazine Profil . In 1981, together with Kurt Langbein , Hans Weiss and Roland Werner, he published the revelatory book Healthy Business. The practices of the pharmaceutical industry. In 1983 he published the medication guide Bitter Pills with the same team of authors . Even then he was working for the German news magazine Der Spiegel . In 1986 he became editor and from 1989 South America correspondent for Spiegel based in Rio de Janeiro. In 1996 he became a correspondent in Vienna and Prague.

In 1989 he was co-author of the health course book. He gained international attention in 1996 with the globalization-critical non-fiction book bestseller Die Globalisierungsfalle , written with Harald Schumann . The attack on democracy and prosperity . The book has been translated into 27 languages. In 2009 Martin wrote the book Die Europafalle. The end of democracy and prosperity.

The Penguin Random House publisher published a new book by Martin in September 2018. The title is Game Over . Prosperity for a few, democracy for no one, nationalism for everyone - what then? The book was shortlisted for the 2018 German Business Book Prize.

From 1996 to 1999 Martin sat on the board of directors of Greenpeace Germany, and in 1997 he became a member of the Club of Rome . In 1980 he received the “ Karl Renner ” award for journalism and in 1997 the Bruno Kreisky Prize for political books .

reception

Numerous books by Martin sparked intense discussions. Der Spiegel called bitter pills "the Bible for preventing drug abuse". The Global Trap described the time as "the non-fiction book of all fiction books," the Süddeutsche Zeitung called it the "perhaps the most important book of the year". Game Over called Die Zeit "an intelligent continuation that humanity has actually tapered into the globalization trap" and "stimulatingly arguable ... for hopefully heated discussions that are about to take place on the subject".

Political career

Martin was a member of the European Parliament without interruption from 1999 to 2014.

European elections 1999

Due to his fame as a critic of the EU and globalization, the Social Democratic Party of Austria elected Martin as the non-party leading candidate for the 1999 European elections , making Martin a member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the same year . He did not join the party afterwards either. In 2004 he left the PES Group and was then a non-attached member of the European Parliament.

Expense scandal in the EU Parliament in 2004

Hans-Peter Martin became known throughout Europe in March 2004 when he accused his parliamentarian colleagues of corruption and enrichment through dishonest expenses and travel expense reports. He filmed parliamentarians signing up on daily allowance lists, but leaving the meeting place immediately afterwards. Martin said he had registered 7,200 cases in which MPs from all parties had unjustifiably collected meeting fees. He published a list with the names of 57 German parliamentarians who, according to Martin, had all wrongly collected daily allowances.

The German magazine Stern-TV broadcast some excerpts from the recordings made by Hans-Peter Martin and Martin's corruption reports to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) were published. Shortly afterwards, a raid was carried out on the office of Hans-Martin Tillack , the then Brussels correspondent for the Stern news magazine , and documents were confiscated.

In a joint press conference of the chairmen of all parliamentary groups in the European Parliament , the CDU politician Hans-Gert Pöttering described Martin’s statements as untenable and unjustified: although a reform of the rules on salaries for EU parliamentarians is welcomed by many, Martin’s public approach is particularly welcome meet with unanimous rejection. The then President of the European Parliament Pat Cox would have welcomed internal treatment. Hans-Peter Martin was accused of using "controversial detection methods", of having persecuted, shadowed and covertly filmed European parliamentarians in order to prove their alleged abuse.

2004 European elections

In the 2004 European elections , Hans-Peter Martin ran in Austria for the newly founded list of Dr. Martin . With 14.04 percent of the vote, the list was the third strongest force behind the SPÖ and ÖVP . The list thus won two of the 18 Austrian seats in the European Parliament. In addition to Martin, Karin Resetarits , a former presenter of the ORF , moved into parliament. Resetarits, however, left the list in 2005 after disputes with Martin to join the liberal ALDE group.

National Council election 2006

On July 29, 2006, Martin announced that he would be running with a list of citizens - the Dr. Martin - in the 2006 National Council election . Within three weeks the citizens' list was able to collect 8311 declarations of support, which made it possible to run in the elections. The Martin list, however, only achieved 2.80% of the vote, which meant that it failed to pass the four percent hurdle for the National Council to be drawn in .

In September 2006, OLAF submitted an investigation report to the Vienna Public Prosecutor's office because of the “appropriate but illegal” use of secretarial allowances for employees. The preliminary inquiries by the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office were discontinued in November 2007 and the proceedings were rejected because it was not possible to prove that the allowances were used inappropriately. Martin blamed formal errors for the allegations. The Secretary General of the European Parliament nevertheless demanded that Martin reimburse parts of the secretarial allowances paid out for employees amounting to 163,381 euros. Martin's action against this decision was dismissed by the European Court of Justice.

European elections 2009

In the European elections in Austria in 2009 , the Martin list received 17.7% of the votes cast and thus three seats. In particular, the large approval for the list among readers of the Kronenzeitung was the subject of public debate in Austria. Martin had a comparatively large presence in this, which among other things saw some leading communication scientists as the reason for his election success. Next to him, Angelika Werthmann, third on the list, and Martin Ehrenhauser, fourth on the list, entered the European Parliament. The electoral success of the Martin list explains the surprisingly poor performance of right-wing populist parties such as the FPÖ and the BZÖ in the 2009 EU elections .

Parliamentary activity

Martin mainly dealt with financial and economic issues in parliament and attracted attention in February 2010 because he called for a full clarification of the financial situation in Greece at an early stage. In April 2009 Martin published his latest book, “Die Europafalle. The end of democracy and prosperity ”published.

During his career, Martin has expressed himself critical of lobbying many times, for example in the Europe trap .

Since his first mandate in 1999, Martin has served on seven different parliamentary committees and six parliamentary delegations . In the legislative period from 2009 to 2014 he was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and was a member of the temporary special committee on the financial, economic and social crisis . In addition, he was a member of the delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China , in which he campaigns for human rights and is an energy and environmental expert. He was also a deputy on the Committee on Culture and Education and the delegation for relations with the United States .

He was rapporteur for several parliamentary reports, most recently for the Economic and Monetary Committee. Among other things, he influenced the design of euro banknotes and called on the EU Commission to carry out an impact assessment for the possible introduction of one and two euro notes .

Werthmann resigns

Angelika Werthmann was originally supposed to only exercise her mandate for half the term of the mandate and then hand it over to Robert Sabitzer, second in the list, however, Werthmann resigned from the party in 2010 after a disagreement with Martin - according to her statements, the conflict was about the whereabouts of funds from the reimbursement of campaign costs .

Ehrenhauser's resignation and accusations of party money

In April 2011, Martin Ehrenhauser resigned from the parliamentary group, accused Martin of “incomprehensible financial conduct” and filed a complaint with the Vienna Public Prosecutor. Martin described Ehrenhauser's accusations as “false and damaging to his reputation” and announced that he was reporting against Ehrenhauser at OLAF "Misuse of EU funds" submitted. He also wanted to file a lawsuit against Ehrenhauser for breaking into his e-mail system.

Ehrenhauser's accusation was that Martin had used around 950,000 euros in government campaign funds for false or private purposes in the 2009 European elections. Following a request from the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office , the EU Parliament voted in September 2011 to lift Martin's immunity , which was necessary to enable the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate. The Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office closed the investigation against Hans-Peter Martin in January 2015.

Exit from politics

Overall, Martin always saw himself as a "buffer stop against the right". At the end of March 2014, Martin announced that he would no longer run for the 2014 European elections and would withdraw from politics at the end of the legislative period. He justified the decision in the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter by saying that "too many powerful people in Austria [...] do not want a genuinely independent person in politics" and that "the pull towards the right-wing FPÖ [...] is frighteningly strong". He therefore sees "no more sensible opportunity to adequately counteract this dangerous shift to the right" and stated a "frightening longing for a new Heil Hitler feeling." In the future he would return to journalism and book writing.

Atom and lobby tickers

On March 11, 2012, Martin published a website on which he publishes information about lobbying the nuclear industry. From April 2011, Martin began collecting attempts to influence lobbyists on his homepage. Martin was exposed to 1,427 attempts at manipulation by lobbyists in 24 months.

Publications

• Game over . Prosperity for a few, democracy for no one, nationalism for everyone - and then what? , Penguin Verlag (Random House Bertelsmann), Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-328-60023-7 ; several editions.
• The European trap. The end of democracy and prosperity , Piper Verlag, Munich 2009; ISBN 978-3-492-04671-8 ; several editions.
• If you want to do it: how politics is done in Austria (editor), Deuticke, Vienna / Frankfurt am Main 2003 (illustrations by Gerhard Haderer ), ISBN 978-3-216-30721-7
• The globalization trap . The attack on democracy and prosperity . Rowohlt 1996; 1997; 1998; 1999; 2000. 351 pp. (With Harald Schumann ), ISBN 3-499-60450-7 ; Total circulation 2 million copies.
• Course book health. Health and wellbeing. Symptoms and ailments. Diseases. Examination and Treatment, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989; 1995; 2001; 2006. 1000 pp. ISBN 978-3-462-03016-7 ; Total circulation more than 1.3 million copies.
• Daily poison: The dangers of chemical agents in household use, Falter-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Vienna 1985
• Bitter pills. Benefits and risks of drugs (with Hans Weiss , Kurt Langbein and Roland Werner). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1983; 2018. ISBN 3-462-03467-7 ; Total circulation more than 3 million copies ( No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from October 3, 1983 to January 8, 1984 and from January 16 to September 16, 1984 )
• Night shift. A company report , Sensen-Verlag, Vienna 1979; ISBN 3-900130-57-4

Web links

• Hans-Peter Martin's website
• Entry on Hans-Peter Martin in the Members' database of the European Parliament
• Literature by and about Hans-Peter Martin in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Hans-Peter Martin  in the German Digital Library
• Hans-Peter Martin on the website of the Austrian Parliament
• Short biography and reviews of works by Hans-Peter Martin at perlentaucher.de
• Radio reports with Hans-Peter Martin in the online archive of the Austrian Mediathek

swell

1. ^ Parliament of the Republic of Austria
2. ↑ Official bibliography ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Official journalistic career ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Business Book Prize 2018: The best business books of the year. Retrieved November 30, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Bitter Pills 2018-2020 - Kurt Langbein et al. - Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Retrieved January 23, 2019 . 
6. ^ Martin, Die Globalisierungsfalle (paperback). Retrieved January 23, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Ulrike Guérot: "Game Over": Freedom is quickly gambled away . In: The time . December 28, 2018, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed January 23, 2019]).
8. ^ Parliament of the Republic of Austria
9. ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior: National Council election 2006 - election day, deadline, final overall result
10. ^ Vorarlberger Nachrichten , May 11, 2007: Hans-Peter Martin has to dig deep into his pocket
11. ^ Kronenzeitung : Martin wants compensation from EU fraud investigators , accessed May 24, 2011.
12. ^ Der Standard , November 22, 2007: Criminal proceedings against Hans-Peter Martin discontinued
13. ↑ Wiener Zeitung , December 16, 2010: Hans-Peter Martin flashes a lawsuit (accessed on November 7, 2013)
14. ↑ Final result according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
15. ^ "Kronen Zeitung" brought Martin Voices , Die Presse of June 8, 2009, accessed on December 14, 2009
16. ^ Die Zeit , June 8, 2009: European elections: The EU enemies in parliament
17. ^ Die Zeit , June 9, 2009: European elections: What now?
18. ^ Die Zeit , June 8, 2012: EU election Austria: Triumph of an eccentric
19. ↑ Eurofora, March 4, 2010: Greek Economy and Goldman Sachs scandal: MEPs call to investigate 1999–2001 and earlier , accessed on May 8, 2011
20. ↑ European Parliament: Delegation to the People's Republic of China
21. ↑ The standard : HP Martin: "Pulverfass China" ( Memento from January 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
22. ↑ OTS : HP Martin: How seriously does China take the energy transition?
23. ↑ European Parliament: Minutes of the delegation meeting of July 13, 2012 (PDF; 171 kB)
24. ↑ European Parliament: Minutes of the delegation meeting on May 23, 2012 (PDF; 179 kB)
25. ↑ European Parliament: Your MEPs: Hans-Peter Martin , accessed November 30, 2011
26. ↑ APA-OTS original text archive, November 29, 2011: " HP Martin: Two new parliamentary reports "
27. ↑ orf.at, April 16, 2011: Ehrenhauser also reports ; Wiener Zeitung , April 20, 2011: New allegations against Hans-Peter Martin (accessed on November 21, 2013).
28. ↑ HP Martin: "Speculative Assumptions" ( Memento of the original from January 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on August 3, 2014 
29. ↑ November 3, 2011: Hans-Peter Martin: Accounts open
30. ↑ European Parliament press release: EU Parliament lifts the immunity of Austrian MP Hans-Peter Martin ( Memento of the original from November 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
31. ↑ orf.at, January 16, 2015: [1]
32. ↑ Hans-Peter Martin: "Political center collapses" - derStandard.at. Retrieved January 23, 2019 (Austrian German). 
33. ↑ philipp.hacker: Martin: "I was a buffer stop against the right". Retrieved January 23, 2019 . 
34. ↑ Falter : Hans-Peter Martin ends political career ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , March 25, 2014 
35. ↑ [Kronenzeitung], March 11, 2012: With a new homepage - EU rebel Martin reveals the advances made by the nuclear power plant lobby
36. ↑ Atomticker.eu: The atom ticker shows how the atomic lobby in Brussels ticks ( memento of the original from March 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 28, 2012 
37. ↑ [heise.de], April 4, 2013 EU MP: 1427 lobby temptations in two years
38. ↑ German National Library: Hans-Peter Martin ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , requested May 8, 2011.