Gerhard Karner

On 8 December 2022 he was one of the architects of blocking Romania and Bulgaria access in Schengen area.

On October 4, 2022, it became known that Stefan Weber, known as a “plagiarism hunter”, raised allegations regarding Karner’s diploma thesis , which is entitled “Decision-making or decision-making behavior in the choice of special business administration courses at the Vienna University of Economics and Business ”. According to Weber, he should copied from the work "Information and Purchase Decision" by Alfred Kuß and marked it as "not or completely insufficient". Also, according to Weber, the first thirty pages of the work should be an “ Amalgamfrom uncited or insufficiently cited foreign texts”. Karner himself denies the allegations: According to him, he wrote the entire work “according to good scientific practice and to the best of my knowledge and belief”, and he looks forward to an examination of any kind “with composure”.

Karner was politically active as a local councilor in Texingtal from 1995, and from April 24, 2003 also as an ÖVP member in the Lower Austrian state parliament. Karner was security spokesman for the ÖVP state parliament club. On October 22, 2015, he became second president of the state parliament. In the same year he was also mayor of Texingtal. On December 3, 2021, he was nominated as Minister of the Interior in the designated federal government of Nehammer and sworn in by the Federal President on December 6, 2021. he lay with his swearing in as Minister down all communal and national political offices.

Even before he became Minister of the Interior, he was criticized by left-wing historians as mayor. The Texingtal community, of which he was mayor, has been running the Dollfuss Museum in the original birthplace of Engelbert Dollfuss since 1998. In 2018 Karner wanted to deal with the "controversial person Dollfuss". However, Karner saw nothing worth questioning about the uncritical museum. Despite widespread criticism, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner planned on sticking to the plans of his predecessors, Wolfgang Peschorn and Karl Nehammer, and moving the Braunau district police command to Adolf Hitler's birthplace.

Gerhard Karner (born 13 November 1967 in Melk) is an Austrian politician currently serving as minister of the interior. From 2003, Karner was a member of the Lower Austrian state legislature. From 2003 to 2015, he was managing director of the People's Party of Lower Austria (VPNÖ). Following the 2015 mayoral election, he became mayor of Texingtal and retained this position until 2021.