Controversy
Plagiarism
Like Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg and Jorgo Chatzimarkakis's doctoral theses,Koch-Mehrin's 2001 thesis,titled 'Historical Currency Unions between Economy and Politics',was analysed by VroniPlag using a crowd-source effort,and she was accused of plagiarism. [5] [6] As a consequence of this,on 11 May 2011 she resigned as chairperson of the FDP in the European Parliament and as vice-president of the European Parliament,arguing that she wanted to end the strain the investigation put on her family.
She remained a member of the European Parliament,and continued to use the doctor title. [7] [8] [9] On 15 June 2011 the University of Heidelberg officially rescinded her doctorate due to massive plagiarism. [10] Only four days later she announced that she had become a full member of the Committee on Industry,Research and Energy. This provoked a hefty reaction from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The DFG President,Matthias Kleiner,stated that further membership of Koch-Mehrin in the European Parliament is not acceptable. [11] Koch-Mehrin later announced that she would relinquish her seat on the committee. [12]
Debate attendance
During the campaign for the 2009 European Parliament election, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) criticised Koch-Mehrin for attending only 39% of the parliamentary debates,not counting maternity leave. She answered back and gave a statutory declaration that she had participated in 75% of the debates. The European Parliament then published a corrected number of 62%,with maternity leave taken into consideration. This figure would later be corrected to 75% without maternity leave,like she had stated earlier. Since giving a wrong statutory declaration is a criminal act,the European Parliament's administration reviewed additional attendance lists Koch-Mehrin provided. Mehrin's party urged a preliminary injunction against the FAZ,but withdrew it soon after,due to the fact of her stating a true statement. [13] [14] [15]
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