Karoline Edtstadler

In the 2019 European elections, Edtstadler was number two on her party's list, following Othmar Karas. As Member of the European Parliament, she served on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and on the Subcommittee on Human Rights. Within the centre-right European People's Party Group (EPP), she led the ÖVP delegation.

From 2017 until 2019, Edtstadler served as state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior.

Since 18 December 2017, Edtstadler has been serving secretary of state in the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, in the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

In October 2011, Edtstadler moved to Section IV (Criminal Law) in the Ministry of Justice. From 2014, she was a personal expert in the cabinet of Minister of Justice Wolfgang Brandstetter, where she was involved in the reform of the criminal code and of criminal law relating to young offenders. In early 2015, she became Senior Prosecutor at the Vienna Corruption Prosecutor's Office, while she remained assigned to the Ministry of Justice. From May 2016 she was a legal employee at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

In 2010 Edtstadler passed relatively heavy sentences on two upstanding brothers, who had been charged with injuring a police officer at a demonstration against the asylum policy of minister of the interior Maria Fekter. The higher regional court of Linz reversed the judgements in significant points, as even the public prosecutor considered the sentences to be too heavy. The president of the regional court Hans Rathgeb praised Edtstadler's work at the court: "She was a very goal-oriented and experienced judge".

Edtstadler is the daughter of former director of the Salzburg state provincial parliament Karl W. Edtstadler, and was raised in Elixhausen in the Salzburg-Umgebung district. She attended elementary school in Elixhausen and went on to the Salzburg Fine Arts Grammar School. Edtstadler studied law at the University of Salzburg and graduated in 2004 with a magistra degree. Court internships at the Mondsee district court and at the Salzburg Regional Court followed. In 2006 she became a judge's candidate at the higher regional court of Linz and in 2008 she became a judge at the Salzburg regional court.

From 2004 to 2006, Edtstadler served as councilor in Henndorf am Wallersee for the ÖVP.

Karoline Edtstadler (born 28 March 1981) is an Austrian lawyer and politician who has been serving as minister for the EU and the constitution in the Austrian Chancellery since 2020.