He presented it when he was a graduate student.

Luxembourg's prime minister stole his thesis material from a European Parliament website

Xavier Bettel.

From the source

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel has stolen the vast majority of his thesis materials he submitted as an advanced university student, according to an investigation by a news website published on Wednesday.

The investigation, conducted by the Luxembourg-based online magazine Reporter, revealed that Bettel composed only two pages of that 56-page dissertation, which was on the topic of possible reform of the European Parliament elections.

Betel wrote the paper in 1999, when he was in his mid-twenties, to pursue a postgraduate diploma, a research master's-level degree, at the University of Nancy II in eastern France (now the University of Lorraine).

The investigation also revealed that the plagiarism-free pages consisted of an introduction of a few paragraphs and a similar brief conclusion.

The magazine stated that its findings on the theft have been confirmed by several independent experts.

In response to the report, Bettel, a member of the European Council of European Union Leaders, said that he reportedly wrote the thesis.

He admitted that "it should have been done differently".

The Reporter said Bettel stole a total of 20 pages of his thesis from the European Parliament's copyright website, without citing it as a source.

It also said Betel copied nine pages of his letter from a report submitted by then-Member of the European Parliament, Georgios Anastasopoulos, but again without citing the document as a source.

"It is possible that some of the clips were taken from the Internet," Bettel's supervisor at the time, Etienne Cricky, told the magazine.

But he said the "context" was different at the time, as the students did not know much about the scientific methods on which research was prepared.

He also said that the technical tools for detecting theft were not as sophisticated at that time, as they are now.

In the past, many European politicians have faced the consequences of stealing university works, such as the former German Defense Minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who resigned in 2011.

• The plagiarism-free pages consist of an introduction of a few paragraphs and a similar brief conclusion.

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