Othmar Karas

• Federal president of the Union of Students (1976–1979)
• Political adviser to the ÖVP (1979–1980)
• First Vice-Chairman of the Austrian Federal Youth Association (1980–1990)
• Federal Chairman of the Young ÖVP (1981–1990)
• Member of the national executive of the ÖVP (1981–1991)
• Secretary-General of the ÖVP (1995–1999)
• Vice-President of the Young European Christian-Democrats (EUJCD) (1981–1990)
• Member of the EPP Bureau and Council (since 1995)
• Member of the steering committee of the European Democrat Union (EDU) (since 1995)
• Member of the National Council (1983–1990)

Karas has been a Member of the European Parliament since the 1999 European elections. He has since been serving on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. In the past, he has in served as a substitute for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and as member of the temporary committee on policy challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged Union 2007–2013. More recently, he was a member of the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect in 2015 and the Committee of Inquiry to investigate alleged contraventions and maladministration in the application of Union law in relation to money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion in 2016. In 2020, he also joined the Subcommittee on Tax Matters.[2]

In the European Parliament, Karas has become one of the center-right's experts on financial regulation. As the rapporteur for the Capital Requirements Directive IV, he played a central role in the parliamentary implementation of capital requirements agreed in the Basel III accords.[3] He helped negotiate a 2013 agreement on an EU-wide cap on bankers' bonuses.[4] Alongside Liêm Hoang Ngoc, he later co-drafted a controversial 2014 report highlighting problems with the European Union-led bail-outs of Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Ireland during the European debt crisis.[5]

In addition to his committee assignments, Karas has been the chairman of the parliament's delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee since 2014. He previously serves as member of the delegation for relations with Japan and as substitute for the delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China.

Within his political bloc, the centre-right European People's Party Group, Karas served as the group's spokesperson on economic affairs from 2002 until 2004 and as vice-president and treasurer from 2004 until 2011. From 2011 until 2019, he led the ÖVP delegation within the EPP group.

In the 2009 European elections, the ÖVP leadership replaced Karas by Ernst Strasser as its lead candidate for the European Parliament;[6] Strasser later had to resign as a consequence of the 2011 cash for influence scandal. Ahead of the 2014 European elections, the ÖVP re-nominated Karas as its lead candidate. At the time, he was considered by Austrian media as a possible successor to Johannes Hahn as Austrian nominee for European Commissioner.[7]

Since the 2019 European Parliament election, Karas has been serving as one of its Vice-Presidents; in this capacity, he is part of the Parliament's leadership under President David Sassoli.[8][9]

In 2021, Karas was appointed to the EPP group's task force for proposing changes to its rules of procedure to allow for “the possibility of the collective termination of membership of a group of Members rather than just individual membership”, alongside Esteban González Pons, Jan Olbrycht, Esther de Lange and Paulo Rangel.[10]