Second politician quits over plagiarism charge
The University of Heidelberg's yesterday withdrew Silvana Koch-Mehrin's PhD.
In March, defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned and was stripped of his doctorate after it emerged he copied parts of his thesis.
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Hide AdAfter he resigned, contributors to a website started an examination of other doctorates and allegations emerged against Ms Koch-Mehrin.
Last month, she resigned as vice-president of the European Parliament and from the leadership board of her Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Germany's governing coalition. She said she didn't want to be a "target for attacks".
The dean of Heidelberg's doctorate committee, Manfred Berg, said his panel has now concluded that her thesis "consists of plagiarisms in substantial parts".
In a statement she said that her thesis was "not free of weaknesses, not seldom imprecise, superficial and sometimes downright inaccurate", but the conclusions were her own.
The thesis was titled Historical currency union between economics and politics: The Latin Monetary Union 1865-1927.