Ján Figeľ

Ján Figel ' [ja ː n figɛʎ ] ( born January 20, 1960 in Vranov nad Topľou ) is a Slovak politician and leader of the Christian Democratic Party Kresťanskodemokratické is hnutie (Christian-Democratic Movement, KDH) and was Minister of Transport in years 2010 to 2012. Between 2004 and 2009 was he joined the European Commission as Commissioner for Education, Training and Culture. He is currently Vice Chairman of the Slovak National Council.

Life

From 1978 to 1983 Figel studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Košice. In 1994 he graduated from each one-semester graduate courses in international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, DC (USA) and the University of Antwerp (Belgium ).

After working in his profession Figel was from 1992 to 1998 Member of the " National Council of the Slovak Republic " ( the Slovak Parliament ) for the (then) opposition and strong Christian conservative Christian- Democratic Movement ( Kresťansko - demokratické hnutie ). He was then to 2002 State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry of the Dzurinda government. During this time he was responsible for the accession negotiations with the EU. From 2002 to 2004 he was Member of Parliament again for the same party and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

In the period from 1995 to 2000, he was also a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Trnava.

Besides its own pan-European political offices in Slovakia and to represent his country in the Euro Europe it was 2002/2003 Member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. After a training period in the European Parliament he is Commissioner since 2004. From May to November, he was together with Erkki Liikanen, Enterprise Commissioner. Since then, he was responsible for education and culture, he actually wanted to be a Commissioner for computer science.

Figel is a member of several pro-European associations in Slovakia. In 2009 he was elected chairman of the KDH and then resigned on 1 October 2009 from the Commission of. His successor is Maroš Šefčovič.

In the government Radicova Figel was appointed Minister of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications. After the change of government in 2012, he is now deputy chairman of the parliament.

Suspicion of plagiarism

In August 2012, Figel hit the headlines after it turned out that his doctoral dissertation may be a plagiarism. He received the degree in social work in 2007 at the private University of St. Elisabeth of Health and Social Work in Bratislava ( sk: Vysoká škola zdravotníctva a sociálnej práce sv Alžbety in Bratislava. ). According to the newspaper SME large parts of his dissertation had been copied from a mitautorierten of Figel book to accession negotiations with the European Union of Slovakia from the year 2003, but without naming the co-authors. Figel was one of the negotiators of Slovakia as well as the time of the dissertation Constitution, European Commissioner for Education and Culture. Despite content deficiencies, the university decided in his own words, " in view of the international position " to confer degrees; commitment by the Rector Figel should have increased as a prominent student the reputation of the school. Also Figel defended his work, as the social dimension of EU accession is one of the core issues. The Slovak Ministry of Education is currently reviewing the legality of Figels dissertation as well as the accreditation of the university.