Morten Messerschmidt

Morten Messerschmidt (born 13 November 1980) is a Danish politician and previous Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Denmark. He is a member of the Danish People's Party (DPP).

Morten Messerschmidt

MEP
Member of the European Parliament
In office
1 July 2009 – 30 June 2019
ConstituencyDenmark
Member of the Folketing
In office
8 February 2005 – 18 June 2009[1]
ConstituencyAarhus
Personal details
Born (1980-11-13) 13 November 1980
Frederikssund, Denmark
Political party Denmark
Danish People's Party
 EU
ECR
Alma materUniversity of Copenhagen

He won his seat in a landslide in the 2009 elections with 284,500 personal votes,[2] and 465,758 personal votes in the 2014 election.[3]

Messerschmidt was convicted in 2002 for publishing material that attempted to link Islamic societies to rape, violence and forced marriages.[4]

Political career

Before taking his seat in the European Parliament, he was a member of the Danish parliament (Danish: Folketinget) from 8 February 2005, having won his seat with 3,812 personal votes.[5]

In August 2016, Messerschmidt resigned as EU parliament group leader for the DPP, as a result of a scandal involving the related foundations FELD and MELD that he had managed. OLAF launched an investigation into misuse of EU funds, and Messerschmidt was reported to the police for identity theft by MEP Rikke Karlsson, who had left the DPP in 2015 in protest against Messerschmidt's alleged withholding of information about the foundations. Karlsson and then-fellow DPP MEP Jøhrn Dormann had been elected to the board of MELD without their knowledge. Ekstra Bladet was nominated for a European Press Prize for investigative reporting in 2017 for their coverage of the scandal.[6]

On 1 March 2018 Messerschmidt was one of three Danish MEPs who voted against a motion to encourage national parliaments to ban "gay conversion therapies".[7]

References
  1. Biography on the website of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget)
  2. Personlige stemmer, Danmarks Statistik
  4. Barker, Alex (4 June 2014). "MEPs with criminal records join Tories' eurosceptic group". Financial Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  5. "Afstemningsresultater FV-2005" (in Danish). Im.dk. Archived from the original on June 11, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-13.
  6. "European Press Prize 2017 nomination". European Press Prize. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  7. http://www.votewatch.eu/en/term8-situation-of-fundamental-rights-in-the-eu-in-2016-motion-for-resolution-after-paragraph-63-amendment-2.html
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