Klaus Hänsch

Klaus Hänsch ( MEP Bonn 2009)

Klaus Hänsch (born December 15, 1938 in Sprottau , Silesia ) is a former German politician and was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 2009 and a member of the Social Democratic Group in the European Parliament . From 1994 to 1997 he was President of the European Parliament.

Life

The family fled from Silesia to Flensburg in 1945 , where Klaus Hänsch finished school in 1959 with a high school diploma. He then did his military service from 1959 to 1960. Between 1960 and 1965 he studied political science , history and sociology in Cologne , Paris and at the Free University of Berlin . Since then he has been a member of the Corps Silingia Breslau in Cologne . Klaus Hänsch finished his studies in 1965 with a diploma in political science. Subsequently, he took up a position as an assistant at the Otto Suhr Institute in Berlin and did his doctorate in 1969 with Gilbert Ziebura . From 1968 to 1969 he also worked as an editor for the political journal Documents , a specialist journal for supranational cooperation.

From 1969 to 1970 he was a consultant for cultural affairs under the Franco-German treaty with the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Heinz Kühn . Afterwards, Klaus Hänsch worked from 1970 to 1979, initially as a press and later as a specialist advisor to the North Rhine-Westphalian Science Minister Johannes Rau . In addition, between 1976 and 1994 he had a teaching position at the University of Duisburg , which appointed him honorary professor in 1984 .

politics

Klaus Hänsch has been a member of the SPD since 1964 , of which he chaired the Mettmann subdistrict from 1972 to 1986.

Klaus Hänsch was from 1979 to 1994 and from 1997 to 2009 a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defense Policy and between 1984 and 1994 and 1997 and 2009 a deputy member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament. From 1987 to 1989 he was chairman of the European Parliament delegation for relations with the United States of America.

Klaus Hänsch was President of the European Parliament between 1994 and 1997. During his tenure, he brought about numerous internal reforms in the European Parliament. His greatest achievement was the introduction of public hearings for each commissioner-designate in Parliament before its vote of confidence across the Commission.

From 2002 to 2003 he represented the European Parliament in the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe ( Constitutional Convention ) and was the only German to be significantly involved in the drafting of the Constitution for Europe . He then represented the European Parliament at the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference on the Constitutional Treaty.

Other offices

Member of the board of trustees of the Democracy Foundation of the University of Cologne.

Member of the Board of Trustees of the European Youth Parliament in Germany V. and is a member of the Europa-Union parliamentary group European Parliament .

Member of the administrative board of the École nationale d'administration (ENA) in France and of the scientific directorate of the Institute for European Politics in Bonn.

Awards

Klaus Hänsch has received numerous awards for his work.

He is an honorary citizen of the Polish city of Szprotawa and holds an honorary doctorate from Loughborough University in the UK and the Poznań School of Economics .

He is also a holder of the Federal Cross of Merit . On November 30, 2006 he received the " Mérite Européen ".

Web links

Commons : Klaus Hänsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of Klaus Hänsch
• Literature by and about Klaus Hänsch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Klaus Hänsch in the Member's database of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Board of Trustees of the Democracy Foundation . Democracy Foundation of the University of Cologne. Retrieved June 11, 2019.