Jorgo Chatzimarkakis

Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (born 21 April 1966, Duisburg)is a German MEP for the Liberal Party. He studied Political Science, and served as a Science Policy Officer at the Bundestag (1993-1996), was a member of the Foreign Office planning staff (1996-1998), and the managing director of Polit Data Concept (management consultants Luxembourg/Brussels) (1999-2004), as well as the managing director of Perl Academy (European management training) (2002-2004). He is a member of the Federal executive of the FDP (since 1995), the secretary-general of the FDP Saar (since 2002), and a member of the ELDR Council (since 1995). He is also a founder member of the German-Greek Industrial Association (DHW) (1993), and a member of the Liberal Turco-German Association (LTD) (since 1995).

His parliamentary duties include memberships of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China. He is also a substitute member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Delegation for relations with the countries of south-east Europe, and the Delegation for relations with Iran.

Background

Before becoming an MEP in 2004, Chatzimarkakis worked in public relations and management consultancy. From 1999-2004 he was Managing Director of Polit Data Concept, a management consultancy and lobbying firm otherwise known as pdc EU Affairs. In his official declaration on his European Parliament website he says the company was active in Belgium and Luxembourg. Before he left the firm, Chatzimarkakis’s fellow partner was Thomas Krings. A sister company, called Polit Data Content was also set up in Germany, and formerly run by Chatzimarkakis and an ex-student of his, Lutz Dommel.

One of pdc EU Affairs’ clients was the German company Infineon, a leading technology and security company. Infineon makes semiconductors and system solutions for cars, industrial electronics, chip card and security as well as applications in communications.

One of the major technologies promoted by Infineon is what is known as RFID or radio frequency identification. In simple terms, RFID technology allows a chip to be embedded within any object allowing it to be tracked and to carry information. In 2004 Infineon opened a RFID “Solution Excellence Center” in Graz, Austria with a budget for R&D of 30 million euros. Two years later the company announced it was working with the US government on RFID for American passports. By 2007, Infineon had invested over $1.2 billion in China, which has just become the largest RFID application market in the world.

Conflicts of Interest

According to press reports, Infineon was Chatzimarkakis’s biggest client, whom he used to visit twice a month. Chatzimarkakis also held an EU accredited pass for Infineon, and represented the company at a European Commission seminar on eDemocracy in February 2004, just four months before becoming an MEP. There is a further blurring of the lines between pdc EU Affairs staff and Infineon, before and after Chatzimarkakis became an MEP.

Since joining the Parliament, Chatzimarkakis has actively been involved in the RFID debate on the Parliament’s Research and Development Committee and as a panel member of the Scientific Technology Options Assessment (STOA), an official parliamentary body led by MEPs, which helps inform EU scientific and technological policy.

Through STOA, Chatzimarkakis has pushed RFID, and “has been busy organising events to raise awareness of the RFID technological revolution”. At one STOA event in 2006, he talked about the “promising application potential” of RFID, especially in the fields of pharmaceuticals, health, agriculture, transport, logistics, and security.