LUXEMBOURG — Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel on Tuesday announced he was giving up a degree he earned in 1999 after being hit with accusations of plagiarism.
This startling story, if it is accurate, highlights that not even the most powerful amongst us is immune to the consequences of having been accused of committing plagiarism. Is it just us, or do a lot of politicians seem to be falling foul of being accused of plagiarising academic work (especially at the Masters and PhD level)? Or is it just plagiarism by a political figure grabs the attention? We have included a link to one related item.
He did not admit to plagiarism, and said in a statement that “it was not my intention to mislead anyone at the time”.
The plagiarism accusations emerged in an October report by the Luxembourg media outlet Reporter, which said that “more than three-quarters” of Bettel’s thesis written in 1998 — on voting reform in European elections — were taken from non-cited sources.
Bettel at the time said he couldn’t remember the details of what he did decades earlier, but “I could have — and, yes, maybe should have — done things differently” in his academic work for the degree.
