Johannes Hahn (born 2 December 1957) is an Austrian politician who has served as European Commissioner for Budget and Administration under Ursula von der Leyen since 1 December 2019.
He previously served as European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations from November 2014 to November 2019 and before that as European Commissioner for Regional Policy from 2010 to 2014. Before entering the European Commission, Hahn served as the Austrian Minister for Science and Research from 2007 to 2010. He is a member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), part of the European People's Party (EPP).
Early life
Hahn studied at the University of Vienna and began his political career in the youth organisation of the Austrian People's Party (JVP), where he was chairman of the Vienna group from 1980 to 1985. In the 1980s, Hahn drafted the first European manifesto of the ÖVP's youth wing, where he was deputy leader. He adopted a decidedly pro-European position at a time when many within the party had doubts about Austria's accession to the EU.
Doctoral thesis
Hahn graduated with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1987. In May 2007 media scholar Stefan Weber accused Hahn of copying numerous pages of his PhD thesis from other books without citing them correctly. The suspected plagiarism was not confirmed by an expert committee from the University of Zurich that looked into the matter. Other academics contested this evaluation. The University of Vienna looked into the matter but decided not to start an examination procedure, saying that Hahn never presented "other people's intellectual property" as his own. Renewed allegation of plagiarism emerged in February 2011, when Austrian Green MP Peter Pilz commissioned Stefan Weber to re-assess Hahn's PhD thesis. End of May 2011, the expert group published its findings, listing 76 cases of plagiarism, which together account for at least 17.2% of Hahn's 254-page doctoral thesis. Hahn denied the charges and claimed they were "politically motivated, hardly surprising and not relevant." In April 2011, the University of Vienna asked the Austrian Agency for Research Integrity to examine Hahn's doctoral thesis. In November 2011, the university released a statement saying that in the university's opinion, Hahn's doctoral thesis wasn't plagiarism. The university's vice-chancellor added that "today, such a dissertation would not be accepted". The agency based its verdict on reports by three external experts. Neither the Agency for Research Integrity nor the University of Vienna would reveal the identities of the external experts.
Years from 1987 to 2007
From 1987 to 1989 Hahn worked as Secretary General of the Austrian Managers Association, and was active in the Austrian Federal Youth Council (ÖBJR) and the General Secretariat of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). In 1992 Hahn became Secretary of the Austrian People's Party in Vienna and, in 1996, he became a member of the Vienna regional council, where he seated until 2003. In the same years (1997–2003) he served as a member of the supervisory board at Novomatic, an online gaming and casino management system firm, of which he was appointed CEO in 2003.
From 2003 to 2007 Hahn was a member of the Vienna regional government (without portfolio). Since 2004 Hahn has been Chairman of the Austrian People's Party in Vienna and, as such, was the party frontrunner in the October 2005 regional elections in which an increase in votes for the ÖVP (and a slight loss in votes for the FPÖ) made the ÖVP the second strongest party in the regional parliament, with 18 seats.
Activities for Novomatic
From 1997 onwards, Hahn was member of the executive board of Novomatic. In 2003, he became the CEO. Novomatic is an international gambling company, founded by the billionaire Johann Graf in 1980. There are several controversies about the company (Novomatic subsidiary G. Matica in Italy; gambling in Poland investigations by the Romanian National Anticorruption Directorate)
Minister of Science and Research
Johannes Hahn was sworn in as Minister of Science and Research on 11 January 2007, as part of the Austrian Federal Government under Alfred Gusenbauer, then from 2 December 2008 as part of the First Faymann government.