Alois Mock
Alois Mock, speaking in 1986
Vice-Chancellor of Austria
In office
21 January 1987 – 24 April 1989
ChancellorFranz Vranitzky
Preceded byNorbert Steger
Succeeded byJosef Riegler
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
21 January 1987 – 4 May 1995
ChancellorFranz Vranitzky
Preceded byPeter Jankowitsch
Succeeded byWolfgang Schüssel
Minister of Education
In office
2 June 1969 – 21 April 1970
ChancellorJosef Klaus
Preceded byTheodor Piffl-Percevic
Succeeded byLeopold Gratz
Personal details
Born(1934-06-10)10 June 1934
Euratsfeld, Lower Austria,
Austria
Died1 June 2017(2017-06-01) (aged 82)
Vienna, Austria
Cause of deathComplications from Parkinson's disease
Political partyAustrian People's Party
EducationUniversity of Vienna

Alois Mock (10 June 1934 – 1 June 2017) was an Austrian politician and member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). He was Vice Chancellor of Austria from 1987 to 1989.[1] As foreign minister, he helped take Austria into the European Union.

Life

Born in Euratsfeld, Lower Austria, to August and Mathilde Mock, he studied law at the University of Vienna and later international law in Bologna and Brussels. In Vienna, he became a member of K.A.V. Norica Wien, a Roman Catholic student fraternity, which is a member of the Cartellverband. From 1961, he advised Austrian chancellor Josef Klaus on European Economic Community and EFTA policies. From 1962 till 1966, he worked at Austria's mission to the OECD in Paris. In 1966, he became Klaus's cabinet secretary. From 1969 to 1970 was the youngest education minister in Austrian history.

After the parliamentary elections 1971 - in which the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) under Bruno Kreisky won a majority — he became a member of parliament and mayor of Euratsfeld. From 1971 to 1978, he chaired the ÖAAB, the most important grouping of the ÖVP. From 1978 to 1987, he was the leader of the ÖVP parliamentary group, and from 1979, he also was ÖVP federal party chairman. He was later to be succeeded by Josef Riegler, Erhard Busek and Wolfgang Schüssel. In 1979, Mock became President of the European Democrat Union (EDU), and from 1983 to 1987 also was president of the International Democratic Union (IDU). At the 1983 elections, the ÖVP obtained nearly the same percentage as Kreisky's SPÖ. Kreisky didn't want to go on without an absolute majority and stepped down.

Following the 1986 elections, Alois Mock was Austrian vice chancellor in the government of Franz Vranitzky (SPÖ) from 1987 to 1989. From 1987 to 1995, he was foreign minister, leading Austria into the European Union. He became one of Austria's most popular politicians. In June 1989, together with his Hungarian colleague Gyula Horn, he cut the wires of the Iron Curtain near Sopron at the fortified border to Communist neighbour Hungary. As a result, during the following months, thousands of East German citizens were able to exit the Eastern Bloc

In 1991, he urged Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Helmut Kohl to recognize Croatia and Slovenia as independent states as soon as possible.[2]

In November 1989 Mock was one of the founders of the Central European cooperative Pentagonale, which later grew from 5 countries to 18 of the CEI (Central European Initiative). In 1999, he retired from parliament because of Parkinson's disease. At the time of his death, Mock was a Member of the Advisory Board of the Global Panel Foundation, an NGO that works behind the scenes in crisis areas around the world.[3]

Death

Mock died on 1 June 2017 from complications of Parkinson's disease at the age of 82.[4][5]

Honours and awards

References

  1. ↑ Cook, Bernard A. (2001). Europe since 1945: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 865. ISBN 978-0-8153-4058-4. Retrieved 26 September 2010.
  2. ↑ Allain Pellet (1992). "The Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration Committee: A Second Breath for the Self-Determination of Peoples" (PDF). European Journal of International Law. 3 (1): 178–185. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.ejil.a035802. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-05-29.
  3. ↑ "Global Panel Foundation | Meeting the World in Person". Archived from the original on 2012-09-20. Retrieved 2014-09-23.
  4. ↑ "Alois Mock dies; aided end of Iron Curtain".
  5. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/06/01/world/europe/ap-eu-austria-obit-alois-mock.html?
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