Leader Hans-Peter Martin European affiliation None European Parliament group None | Founded 2004 International affiliation None | |
Ideology Anti-corruption politics
Pro-transparency
Euroscepticism
Single-issue | ||
The Hans-Peter Martin's List – For genuine control in Brussels (German: Liste Dr. Hans-Peter Martin – Für echte Kontrolle in Brüssel) is an Austrian anti-corruption and pro-transparency political party. It had three seats in the European Parliament.
Hans-Peter Martin who had led the Austrian Social Democratic parliamentary party in the European Parliament, founded the party founded in 2004 after he had come into conflict with his own party. In the 2004 European Parliament election he received a very surprising 14 per cent of the vote — more than the Greens or the Austrian Freedom Party, and gained two seats for Austria in the European Parliament. His colleague at the time of the elections was Karin Resetarits, a former journalist with both the ORF and a private radio station. However, they soon found themselves in disagreement and ceased to work together. She joined the Liberal group in the European parliament on June 7, 2005
The party also competed in the Austrian legislative elections of 2006 as the "Dr. Martin's List — For Democracy, Control, Justice" (MATIN), but obtained no seats in the parliament.
European parliament election, 2009
In 2009, Martin flirted with the idea of heading a planned Austrian list of the pan-European eurosceptical alliance Libertas.eu, but later rebuffed Libertas' advances. While Libertas finally didn't manage to set up a list at all, Martin successfully competed in the election with his independent list. He even surprised many by increasing his vote share to 18%, leading to three seats in the European Parliament.
Later, Martin wanted third-placed Angelika Werthmann not to take up her seat so that fourth-placed Martin Ehrenhauser could become an MEP instead. However, Werthmann refused to do so, and in the end, second-placed Robert Sabitzer didn't take up his seat; afterwards, there were rumours that Werthmann might leave to join the Greens or the Austrian People's Party instead. The list however vigorously denied the accusations and the supposed defection has not occurred.
Reportedly, following the 2009 election Martin tried to have his three MEPs join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group; Martin later denied that he had wanted to join.