Karin Kneissl

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Karin Kneissl (2018)

Karin Kneissl (* 18 January 1965 in Vienna ) is an Austrian non-party politician , former diplomat , the Middle East expert and book author . From December 18, 2017 to June 3, 2019, she was the FPÖ- nominated Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria .

Life

Karin Kneissl has lived in Seibersdorf ( Lower Austria ) since 1998 . She has been married to the entrepreneur Wolfgang Meilinger since August 18, 2018 . After a violent conflict, Kneissl and Meilinger split up.

education

Kneissl spent part of her childhood in the Jordanian capital, Amman , where her father was the pilot of King Hussein I and was involved in setting up the national airline ALIA (forerunner of the Royal Jordanian ).

From 1983 to 1987 she studied at the University of Vienna Jus and Arabic , which she completed with Magister iuris and graduate of the United Nations in Arabic. During her youth and student days, she was active for Amnesty International and supported environmental and human rights organizations around the world.

She then researched for her dissertation in international law on the concept of border between the conflicting parties in the Middle East . Stops were the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a university in Amman (Jordan). During her studies, she worked as a volunteer in the St. Louis Hospice in Jerusalem and in a bank in Amman. With a Fulbright scholarship , she was at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC from 1989 to 1991. In 1991/1992 she completed the cycle international of the École nationale d'administration (ENA) in Paris. In 1992 she submitted her dissertation to the University of Vienna and was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD . Contrary to what is stated in her résumé in various places, she was not a co-founder of the Austrian section of Doctors Without Borders in 1992/1993 .

Kneissl speaks five foreign languages ​​(English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Italian) and has a basic knowledge of two others (Hebrew and Hungarian).

Professional career

In 1990 she joined the diplomatic service of the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Austria . From 1990 to 1998 she worked in the cabinet of the Foreign Minister, in the international law office and was in Paris and Madrid on foreign posts.

After leaving the diplomatic service in autumn 1998, she worked as a freelance journalist for German and English-language print media until 2003. Among other things, she was the Slovenia correspondent for Die Presse and wrote articles for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . From 2002 onwards she became known to the general public through her political analyzes on the topics of the Middle East and energy policy on Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF).

In addition, Karin Kneissl taught at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Vienna from 1995 to 2004. From 2000 she taught at the same time at the Diplomatic Academy Vienna and as a guest lecturer at the National Defense Academy and the Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. Further teaching activities were at the Catholic French-speaking Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut and the Center international des sciences de l'homme (CISH) in Byblos (Lebanon) and, from 2007, at the EBS (European Business School) in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany. Her teaching activities focus on international law, the history of the Middle East and the energy market. She is the author of several specialist publications and non-fiction books.

From 2003 Kneissl was Vice President of the Austrian Society for Political-Military Studies STRATEG and from 2011 to 2015 she was on the board of the organization Whistleblowing Austria, which she co-founded .

On May 10, 2017, she was appointed to the supervisory board of Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein .

In May 2020 it was announced that Kneissl will take up her new job as a guest author for the Russian state broadcaster Russia Today . This was announced by the station's editor-in-chief and recalled that Kneissl was the ex-foreign minister at whose wedding Putin danced. The NDR-media magazine ZAPP remembered in the context of the fact that Karin Kneissl one of Putin Knicks made.

Political activity and positions

From 2005 to 2010 Karin Kneissl was an independent candidate on the list of the ÖVP in the Seibersdorf municipal council .

After she was announced as future Secretary of State, several statements from her previous journalistic work caught the eye. In 2012, for example, she spoke favorably of the independence movement in Catalonia . Their comparison in the book My Middle East also caused a stir , the Zionism founded by Theodor Herzl is similar to the " blood and soil ideology " based on German nationalism . Her comments on the European refugee crisis from 2015 attracted more attention . In this context she criticized the actions of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel as “grossly negligent” and the EU-Turkey agreement of March 18, 2016 as “nonsense”. Kneissl said that most of the migrants were economic refugees and 80 percent were young men between the ages of 20 and 30, whom she described as "testosterone-controlled". One of the reasons for the revolts in the Arab world was that they had neither a place to live nor a job and therefore “no longer come to a woman” and thus “have no status as a man in a traditional society”.

In July 2016, Kneissl criticized the EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker , whom she described as a “cynic of power”, “Brussels Caesar”, “rowdy” and “arrogant” and whom she accused of “breaking agreements when it was useful to him seems". Pope Francis ' sermons "repeatedly suggest ignorance and dangerous naivety," she said when Francis compared the refugee camps in Greece with concentration camps.

On December 18, 2017 was as Minister for Europe, Integration and appearance in federal government short I vowed. She had been nominated by the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). As Foreign Minister, Kneissl defended the heavily criticized rejection of the UN migration pact by the turquoise-blue federal government in November 2018 . Despite all the lack of commitment and emphasis on sovereignty, it was agreed to vote with abstention, said Kneissl. In contrast, the international law office of her foreign ministry warned against rejecting the UN migration pact: The paper was neither a treaty nor legally binding. The international law experts in the department fear great damage to Austria's credibility in the event of non-acceptance.

After the FPÖ left the Kurz government as a result of the Ibiza affair in May 2019, Kneissl stayed on as a non-party foreign minister at her own request. Most recently she was part of the (temporary) cabinet of experts of Chancellor Hartwig Löger (ÖVP). With the swearing-in of the Federal Government Bierlein on June 3, 2019, she left the Federal Government. Her successor is the non-party lawyer Alexander Schallenberg .

criticism

Vladimir Putin at Karin Kneissl's wedding (2018)

In their private wedding ceremony in Gamlitz in Southern Styria have included Chancellor Sebastian Kurz ( ÖVP ) Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache ( FPÖ ), the FPÖ Minister Norbert Hofer and Mario Kunasek , the OPEC - Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo and other diplomats invited.

At the invitation of Kneissl, the wedding was also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin , which had already been critically commented on in advance at home and abroad as an obsession for recognition on the one hand, or as naive naivety on the other. After the dance, Kneissl curtsied to Putin. NEOS party leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger criticized Kneissl's behavior as a “really fatal sign” and as a “very serious foreign policy mistake” that “completely isolates Austria in Europe”. According to spokesmen for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , it was “primarily a private celebration and a personal visit” as well as a “working visit”, which is why the Ministry of the Interior had to pay for the expenses incurred.

The Ukraine again denied the suitability of Austrian politicians as mediators in the Ukraine conflict with Russia after the participation of the FPÖ in government due to its 2016 cooperation agreement with Putin's United Russia party had already caused confusion. The positioning of the ÖVP-FPÖ federal government signaled by this was also questioned in view of the tensions between the EU , whose Council Presidency Austria held in the second half of 2018, and Russia under Putin's presidency. Once again, the demonstrative proximity to the Russian President creates the impression that, according to Gerhard Mangott , “Austria is a kind of Trojan horse within the EU for Putin”. In addition to the political implications, the curtsey to Putin as well as the police security precautions required by his visit to their wedding and the costs to be borne by the Austrian Foreign Ministry were also topics of discussion.

Publications

  • The borderline concept of the conflicting parties in the Middle East. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 1991.
  • Hezbollah: Lebanese Resistance Movement, Islamic Terrorist Group or Just a Political Party? An examination of the Shiite mass movement Hezbollah in the Lebanese and regional context. National Defense Academy, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-901328-69-6 .
  • The energy poker. How oil and gas affect the global economy. FinanzBook, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89879-187-4 ; 2nd, revised edition 2008, ISBN 978-3-89879-448-0 .
  • The spiral of violence. Why the Orient and Occident cannot work together. Ecowin, Salzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-902404-39-8 .
  • Testosterone makes politics. Braumüller, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-99100-068-6 .
  • The fragmented world. What remains of globalization. Braumüller, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-99100-086-0 .
  • My middle east. Braumüller, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-99100-112-6 .
  • Prinz Eugen. From outsider to genius of Europe. Belvedere, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-902805-58-4 . (Children's book)
  • Changing of the guard. On the way to a Chinese world order. Frank & Frei, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-9504348-4-2 .

Web links

Commons : Karin Kneissl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BOOKS - German. Retrieved May 29, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Putin at the wedding of the Foreign Minister. In: ORF.at. August 18, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Putin has left Kneissl's wedding again. In: ORF.at. August 18, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Ex-Foreign Minister Kneissl reports her husband. April 3, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Domestic violence: Kneissl reports her husband. April 3, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Kneissl's husband: 'Didn't hit my wife'. April 10, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b c Karin Kneissl: Middle East expert with controversial views. In: Tiroler Tageszeitung (online), December 16, 2017.
  8. ↑ Christian Ultsch: Conservative free spirit on the jump back to the foreign office. In: DiePresse.com. December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 12, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Karin Kneissl: More and more criticism of NGOs for rescuing refugees. Kronen Zeitung, July 16, 2017, accessed on December 21, 2017 .
  10. ↑ profile : Karin Kneissl's embellished résumé , January 9, 2018
  11. ↑ a b c “Linzer Torte” with Karin Kneissl , Radio Oberösterreich, November 29, 2015.
  12. ↑ Karin Kneissl's CV, Karin Kneissl's website, accessed on December 20, 2017
  13. ↑ Kneissl causes confusion . In: profile . No.  52 / 2017–01 / 2018 , December 23, 2017, p. 13 .
  14. ↑ Beatrix Karl , Wolfgang Mantl , Klaus Poier , Manfred Prisching , Anita Ziegerhofer (eds.): Steirisches Jahrbuch für Politik 2015 . Böhlau , Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-20419-0 , pp. 376 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ↑ About us. (No longer available online.) Whistleblowing Austria (WBA), archived from the original on June 23, 2011 ; Retrieved December 25, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Online query of the association register extract. Federal Ministry of the Interior , December 25, 2017, accessed on December 25, 2017 (ZVR number: 017042888. Functional period July 4, 2011 - July 3, 2014 (not up to date)).
  17. ↑ a b About me , Karin Kneissl's website, accessed on December 10, 2017
  18. ↑ New job: Ex-Minister Karin Kneissl is now working for Putin . In: Der Standard , May 9, 2020.
  19. ^ X Foreign Minister Kneissl writes for the Kremlin propaganda station RT . In: Die Presse , May 9, 2020.
  20. ↑ Knicks to Putin: Karin Kneissl writes for "Russia Today" Süddeutsche Zeitung May 10, 2020
  21. ↑ Zipped through: Razor-sharp chefs and lousy types from 3:30 a.m. ZAPP May 13, 2020
  22. ^ The community organs ( Memento of April 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), website of the market community Seibersdorf
  23. ↑ Dotted with pithy sayings at FPÖ. In: ORF.at from December 17, 2017.
  24. ↑ a b Middle East expert with a penchant for controversy becomes foreign minister. In: kleinezeitung.at , December 16, 2017.
  25. ↑ Karin Kneissl: The new flippancy - in the Vatican and in the Hofburg. In: DiePresse.com of April 26, 2017.
  26. ^ The new government: Many career changers , ORF-Online, December 16, 2017.
  27. ↑ Michael Völker: FPÖ ministerial list is fixed: Kickl becomes Minister of the Interior. derStandard.at, accessed on December 15, 2017 .
  28. ↑ Kneissl defends Austria's abstention from the migration pact . In: www.kleinezeitung.at . ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed on November 25, 2018]).
  29. ↑ International law office warned against rejection of the UN migration pact . In: profil.at . November 24, 2018 ( profil.at [accessed November 25, 2018]).
  30. ↑ tagesschau.de: FPÖ ministers leave Austria's government. Retrieved May 25, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Hasnain Kazim, Raniah Salloum: Austria's Foreign Minister refuses to resign: Kneissl insists on the right to stay . In: Spiegel Online . May 22, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed May 25, 2019]).
  32. ↑ ORF at / Agencies red: Transitional government promised: Austria is entering "new territory". May 22, 2019, accessed May 25, 2019 .
  33. ↑ ORF at / agencies red: Angelobt: Löger now interim chancellor. May 28, 2019. Retrieved May 29, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Putin was gone again after 1.5 hours. In: ORF.at. August 18, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  35. ↑ Putin by limousine on the way to Gamlitz. In: ORF.at. August 18, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  36. ^ Kerstin Rottmann: Austria's Foreign Minister: The weird Putin show at a wedding in Styria. In: WELT.de. August 19, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  37. ↑ An Unadjusted in Dance with Putin , NZZ, August 20, 2018
  38. ↑ Pictures of Kneissl curtsey before Putin went around the world. August 19, 2018, accessed September 23, 2019 .
  39. ↑ Politeness or political debacle? Kneissl's curtsey to Putin. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  40. ^ Salzburg24: Kneissl wedding: criticism of curtsey and Putin invitation. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  41. ↑ FOCUS Online: Putin was her wedding guest: Kneissl speaks for the first time about her curtsey to the Kremlin boss. Retrieved November 24, 2019 .
  42. ↑ 20 08 2018 at 11:12 am: Media after Kneissl wedding: "You don't dance with impunity ... Accessed November 24, 2019 .
  43. ↑ Kneissl wedding: high security precautions. In: ORF.at. August 16, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  44. ^ Kneissl wedding: discussion of costs. In: ORF.at. August 17, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  45. ↑ High security measures. In: ORF.at. August 17, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  46. ↑ Foreign Ministry rejects criticism. In: ORF.at. August 16, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  47. ↑ Courier : Tricky wedding dance with President Putin , August 16, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Kneissl, Karin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician, former diplomat, energy analyst and Middle East expert
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna