Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, officially Georgios Chatzimarkakis (; born 21 April 1966) is a German politician of Greek descent, former Member of the European Parliament with the Free Democratic Party of Germany (part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe). He was a 2014 European Parliament candidate for the newly formed party Greek European Citizens (Έλληνες Ευρωπαίοι Πολίτες) of Greece. He currently holds the position of Chief Executive Officer of the European Hydrogen Association "Hydrogen Europe". Hydrogen Europe (formerly known as NEW-IG) is an industry association representing almost 100 companies, both large and SMEs, working to promote hydrogen and fuel cells energy. The association partners with the European Commission and the research community in the public-private partnership Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) to accelerate the market introduction of these clean technologies in the energy and transport sectors.
Greece
Chatzimarkakis wants Greece to stay in the Euro Zone. In September 2011, Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler, wrote an article in the newspaper Die Welt, where he explained possible benefits of a Greek bankruptcy for the rest of the Eurozone. Chatzimarkakis criticized his party leader as not supporting investors to engage in Greece. Rösler was also heavily criticized by German media and major German politicians for his statement. Chatzimarkakis repeatedly criticised the austerity policy of the Troika, he argues it pauperizes the country. In May 2011, in German weekly DIE ZEIT, Chatzimarkakis published an opinion editorial in which he called for a European Marshall Plan for Greece called "Herkules Plan." The plan calls for investments in Health Tourism, Renewable Energies, Shipping and Information technology.
Plagiarism
In 2000 Chatzimarkakis received a doctor's degree at the University of Bonn. However the crowdsourcing project VroniPlag found cases of alleged plagiarism in the thesis. In May 2011 the University announced that it was investigating the claims at the request of Chatzimarkakis himself and on 13 July the University announced that the doctorate would be revoked after finding that part of the thesis was plagiarised. Chatzimarkakis went to court against this decision but on 22 March 2012 the Verwaltungsgericht Köln dismissed Chatzimarkakis' action against the University of Bonn on the following grounds: "The Faculty has consistently held that the plaintiff was guilty of deception. In his doctoral thesis he adopted long passages verbatim from foreign works, without highlighting these clearly and in accordance with the rules of good scientific practice."
Other activities
Before his political career in the European Parliament, Chatzimarkakis was managing director of the consultancy "polit data concept" and of the "Perl Academy". He is a founding member of the German-Greek Industrial Association (DHW) and was elected its president in 2004.