Alexander Van der Bellen

Origin and youth

In 1700 or 1763 the ancestors of Van der Bellen emigrated from the Netherlands into the Russian Empire. During Russian Civil War a part of his family escaped from the Bolsheviki and migrated to the newly independent Estonia. Before this Van der Bellen's grandfather Aleksander von der Bellen served as the head of the civilian regional government of Pskow. Claiming Dutch origins the family changed its name from „von der Bellen“ into „Van der Bellen“. In 1931 Van der Bellen's father, who was also called Alexander, married Alma Sieboldt in Kihelkonna on Saaremaa. Furthermore, Van der Bellen obtained the Estonian citizenship. In June 1940 as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Estonia was invaded by the Soviet Union and later on annexed. Subsequently, in February or March 1941 Van der Bellen father, mother and older sister Vivian-Diana moved to the national socialist German Reich, upon the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty they were there accepted as so called Volksdeutsche. Van der Bellen's Father had to fear repression by the soviet secret service NKWD because of his origins and occupation as an international bank manager.

Over Laugszargen (Memelland) and a German resettlement camp in Werneck at Würzburg his parents came to Vienna, where there son Alexander Van der Bellen was born in 1944 and baptized evangelically. As the Red Army approached Vienna as part of the Vienna Offensive, the Family escaped to the Kaunertal in Tyrol, where is father later on became active as a businessman again.

In 1954, after completing a primary school in Innsbruck, he started visiting the Akademisches Gymnasium Innsbruck where he graduated in 1962 and received his Matura. Until this time Van der Bellen only had an Estonian citizenship like his parents, in 1958 (or 1959) he obtained the Austrian citizenship. According to Van der Bellen himself he stated to not have done the Austrian military service at the Bundesheer.

He volunteered to undergo a Musterung (military fitness check) twice, the first one resulted with him being rated as unfit (untauglich), however, he successfully passes the second one. Later, he got several respite during his studies and after his marriage. After that Van der Bellen was no long summoned, which attributed to his subsequent professorship.

Education

After receiving his Matura Van der Bellen started studying economics at the University of Innsbruck. He completed his studies in 1966 as Diplom-Volkswirt. With his dissertation Kollektive Haushalte und gemeinwirtschaftliche Unternehmungen: Probleme ihrer Koordination ("Collective households and public-service enterprises: Problems of their coordination") he was promoted Dr. rer. oec (doctor rerum oeconomicarum) in December 1966. From 1968 to 1971 he served as a scientific assistant of Clemens August Andreae at the public finance institution of the University of Innsbruck and from 1972 to 1974 as Research Fellow at the international institution for management and administration of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. After his own statement he there established friendship with Turkish economist Murat R. Sertel, with who he worked on decision and preference theories and later on published several articles and discussion papers.

In 1976 Van der Bellen was appointed extraordinary university professor at the Innsbruck University, where he remained until 1980. During this time he moved to Vienna to study and research from 1977 to 1980 at the Verwaltungsakademie des Bundes. From 1980 to 1999 he was extraordinary university professor for economics at the University of Vienna. Between 1990 and 1994 he there also became dean of the faculty for economics at University of Vienna. In October 1999 he became parliamentary leader of the Greens in the National Council and thus resigned as university professor in January 2009. In February the same year Van der Bellen retired.

His research focused on planning and financing procedures in the public sector, infrastructure financing, fiscal policy, public expenditure, government regulation policy, public undertakings and environmental and transport policy. He has published in professional journals such as the Die Betriebswirtschaft, Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Public Choice, Wirtschaftspolitische Blätter and the Zeitschrift für öffentliche und gemeinwirtschaftliche Unternehmen.

Family

Van der Bellen married when he was 18 years old and with 19 he became a father for the first time. His relationship with Brigitte (born Briggite Hüttner, 1943–2018) lasted over 50 years, until they divorced in 2015. He had two sons with Brigitte. Since December 2015 Van der Bellen is married with a longstanding friend and the managing director of the Greens Club, Doris Schmidauer. He lives in Vienna as well as in Kaunertal, Tyrol.

Religion

As a young man Van der Bellen left the Evangelical Church, because he was upset over his local pastor. According to his own words he does not believe in the one God, but in a "massage or vision" ("Botschaft oder Vision"), which in his view the new Testament states.

Freemason

According to his own statement Van der Bellen joined the back then only existing Freemasonry in Innsbruck, although he participated at meetings for a year, which he described as "being active". "After that, as a purely passive member, I paid the membership fee for about 10 years and finally left on my explicit request" ("Danach habe ich als rein passives Mitglied noch etwa 10 Jahre lang den Mitgliedsbeitrag bezahlt und bin schließlich auf meinen expliziten Wunsch hin ausgeschieden"), Van der Bellen in a ZIB 2 elections interview with Armin Wolf (18 May 2016). According to Van der Bellen's own words he is no longer a Freemason.

Estonian Citizenship

After the second round of voting in the 2016 presidential elections, in which Van der Bellen achieved final victory, President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves congratulated him. The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Van der Bellen could get back his Estonian passport anytime. This is only possible because Van der Bellen's parents were Estonian citizens before the 16 June 1940, children of these parents are automatically accepted as citizens. Urmas Paet, former Foreign Minister of Estonia and a Member of the European Parliament said: "the election results are a reason to congratulate Austrians twice. For Estonia and its people, the fact that Austria has elected an Estonian citizen as its president also plays a role"

Nickname

Van der Bellen is sometimes also called „Sascha“ (which is an abbreviation of his first name) by his friends, colleagues and within his party.

Joining politics

Van der Bellen in 2004

Van der Bellen was a member of the Social Democratic Party from the mid-1970s until the late 1980s, but his interests later turned towards the environmental movement. His former postgraduate Peter Pilz, the back-then spokesman of the Green Party, brought Van der Bellen into his party. Van der Bellen later described these changes as a development "from an arrogant anti-capitalist to a generous left-liberal", although the latter self-image in his autobiography of 2015 also changed into a "liberal Anglo-Saxon coinage".

In 1992, Van der Bellen was nominated by the Greens for the office of the President of the Court of Audit; he was defeated by the ÖVP-close Franz Fiedler. After the Greens made significant losses in the 1995 legislative elections on 17 December, Van der Bellen took over the party chairmanship from Christoph Chorherr in December 1997 and remained until October 2008, being the longest-serving spokesman in the history of the Austrian Greens, with almost eleven years in office.

He assumed chairmanship with the party having 4.8% consent in polls at that that time. Leading the party to new highs in each of the following three legislative elections: 1999 legislative elections on October the 3rd with 7.4%, 2002 legislative elections on November the 24th with 9.5%, and the 2006 legislative elections on October the 1st with 11.05%.

After losses in the 2008 legislative elections on 28 September, in which the Greens dropped to 10.11%, Van der Bellen, meanwhile medially dubbed "the green professor", resigned on 3 October 2008 as spokesman of the Green Party. He handed over the office to the back-then Third President of the National Council Eva Glawischnig. As designated Spokeswoman she was elected administrative party leader on 24 October and later officially endorsed and sworn in by the Bundeskrongress.

Member of parliament

With the beginning of the XIX. legislative period on 7 November 1994 Van der Bellen functioned as a member to the National Council for the first time and held this position until 2012. During the XXIV. legislative period he dropped out of the National Council on 5 July 2012. From 1999 to 2008 he was parliamentary leader of the Green Party in the National Council.

During his time in the National Council, Van der Bellen also served as a member of the Budged, Main, Science, Financial, Industrial (as deputy chairman), Administrative and Foreign Affairs (as clerk and deputy chairman) committee as well as member of several subcommittees. In 2009/10 he was a substitute member and from 2010 to 2012 a member of the Austrian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

After the 2008 legislative elections, he was proposed by the Greens, who were no longer the third strongest party, as a counter-candidate to the controversial FPÖ candidate Martin Graf for the post of Third President of the National Council, however, he failed to win the vote on 28 October 2008: Graf was elected with 109 out of 156 valid votes, Van der Bellen only received 27, and the remaining 20 votes went to other MPs.

University commissioner

On February 2011, Van der Bellen was elected by the red-green city and state government as Commissioner for Universities and Research (also: Commissioner of the City of Vienna for Universities and Research, denotation in 2013). While he himself volunteered this activity, in addition to his still exercised National Council mandate, the new infrastructure office for him with a budget of 210,000 euros annually was endowed.

As a university commissioner, he campaigned for the improvement of the relationship between the city of Vienna and the high schools located there, hence, universities, colleges and private universities. At his initiative, regular meetings took place for the first time between representatives of the Viennese universities and the Municipal Department 35 (Municipal Department of the City of Vienna) in order to improve cooperation in immigration and residence matters for third-country students and researchers. The initiative was taken up by the Austrian Universities Conference - The Austrian Conference of Rectors (uniko) and extended from Vienna to the whole of Austria. On the initiative of University Commissioner Van der Bellen, the Vienna University Circle, an informal advisory board composed of rectors and vice-rectors of Viennese universities, including the research institution "Institute of Science and Technology Austria" (IST Austria), were launched.

Vienna state parliament

At the 2010 Viennese state elections on 10th October Van der Bellen stood as a candidate on the 29th place of the list of the Vienna Greens. With the elections slogan "Go Professor go!" he reached 11,952 preferred votes and thus achieved a precedence on the first place. Although he stated in multiple interviews: "Should I get the preferential votes and it comes to a red-green government, I will definitely move into the Landtag", he still did not accept the Gemeinderat mandate after the elections and remained in the National Council til 5 July 2012.

On 14 June 2012, Van der Bellen announced in a press conference to swap from the National Council to the Vienna Gemeinderat and Landtag. On 5 July 2012 he left the National Council. The inauguration took place in September 2012 at the first Gemeinderat meeting after the summer break. In January 2015, it was announced that Van der Bellen would retreat from Vienna's municipal politics at the end of the legislative period. In the internal list election of the Vienna Greens on 14 February, after the application deadline, he did not compete in the internal party candidacy. Thus he was no longer on a selectable place on the electoral lists of the Greens in the 2015 Viennese state elections.

Political view

In 2001, Van der Bellen said that he turned from an "arrogant anti-capitalist" into a "broad-minded left-liberal" over the course of his political career.^[10] In his 2015 autobiography, Van der Bellen described himself as a liberal positioned in the political centre while downplaying his earlier description as left-liberal,^[11] and said he was inspired by the Anglo-Saxon liberal tradition, particularly John Stuart Mill.^[10] He is strongly supportive of the European Union, and advocates European federalism.^[11][12] During the 2016 presidential election, he appealed to the political centre and used "Unser Präsident der Mitte" (Our President of the Centre) for his campaign slogan.^[14]

Van der Bellen has argued that Europe should accept refugees who have fled to Europe from war zones in Syria and elsewhere,^[15] and has often mentioned his own background as the son of refugees in debates.^[16] He has opposed the government's decision to impose a limit on how many asylum-seekers it will allow into Austria.^[17]

Van der Bellen has commented that due to emerging Islamophobia and prejudice against women wearing headscarves, he could foresee a day when all non-Muslim women might also be asked to wear headscarves as a sign of solidarity with women who wear them on religious grounds.^[18] The remarks were criticized widely, especially on the political right.^[19]

Van der Bellen has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump.^[20] He has opined that the British withdrawal from the European Union is damaging to the economies of both the United Kingdom and Europe.^[21] He is opposed to recognising the Russian annexation of Crimea.^[21] He has stated that the Austrian embassy in Israel should remain in Tel Aviv.^[21]

Van der Bellen has criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his supporters after mass pro-Erdoğan protests by Turks in Austria, saying: "In Austria there is freedom to demonstrate as long as it is peaceful. [...] Everyone that accepts the right to demonstrate, has to see that the same rights – such as freedom of speech, press freedom, independent justice system, and freedom to demonstrate are being denied in Turkey by President Erdogan."^[22][23]