Hans-Peter Martin (born 11 August 1957) is an Austrian author and journalist and former politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament between 1999 and 2014.
It convinces by chaining together a variety of societal phenomena which are rarely combined in popular discourse: the unbroken neoliberal agenda and capital accumulation leading to the breakdown of individual liberties, democracy, and – eventually – war.
He produced evidence of MEP's signing the register in the morning to receive their daily allowance, and then immediately leaving the building.
Eventually the disclosures and the public outrage Martin's revelations induced resulted in a change of the expense system.
For an independent he received a surprising 14% of the vote – more than the Greens or the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party – and gained two of Austria's seats in the European Parliament.
Martin explained the unexpectedly low result with accusations of "expedient but contrary to the rule" use of the secretarial allowance, which were widely publicised in the Austrian media.
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.
[13][14] In total Martin collected more than 1400 "lobby attempts" during the two-year timespan and published a summary table ordered by category.
[15] Among examples of extraordinary lobbying Martin listed were all-inclusive travels to Azerbaijan, China and Switzerland as well as free conference invitations to Cyprus and London.