Personal details
Lukas Mandl, born 12 July 1979 in Vienna, is the longest-serving Austrian MEP in the European People’s Party (EPP) Group in the European Parliament. His work focuses on geopolitics, economy, security and regional policy.
Mandl chairs the EPP Group in the Committee on Development and leads the cross-party Abraham Accords Network in the European Parliament (AANEP). Mandl served as a member of the Lower Austrian State Parliament for almost ten years before moving to the European Parliament in 2017. He was re-elected in 2019 and 2024. He served as Vice-Chair of the Committee on Defence and as Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for the Korean Peninsula. In addition to the Middle East, China and the US are also key regions in Mandl’s work.
He is a member of the delegations for the African Union and the EEA states. In the European Parliament, Mandl is the lead member for the “Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG)“ in the Western Balkans. Mandl has served on the European Parliament’s Committees on Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Legal Affairs, the Environment and Petitions. He was the chief negotiator for the report on Switzerland.
Since 2025, he has been involved in the Omnibus packages on deregulation. Together with the Social Democrat MEP Günther Sidl and the Vienna based Braintrust Institute, Mandl invites Austria’s mayors to take part in a quarterly survey.
Mandl was deputy mayor of Gerasdorf, where he grew up and still lives. He was elected President of the Assembly of European Regions (AER) in 2025 and will chair the International Council of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM) from 2026. Mandl is a co-founder of, amongst others, the Friends of Freedom (2024), the Austrian-Kosovar Friendship Society within the PAN umbrella organisation (2015) and the Friends of the Schülerunion (2002).
He graduated in Communication Studies from the University of Vienna and taught as an external lecturer at the Vienna University of Economics and Business for eight years. From 2025, he will be teaching at the University of Gjilan in Kosovo. Mandl (born 1979) is the fourth of five children of a Dutch mother and a Styrian father. He was married and has three adult children. Mandl is passionate about pilgrimage routes, cabaret and SK Rapid Vienna. He is a member of Christian and Catholic secondary school and university fraternities in Rome, Vienna, Strasbourg, St. Pölten, Krems, Weiz, Purkersdorf and Ebreichsdorf.
In the Lower Austrian State Parliament:
A very personal contribution to administrative reform
Mandl edited books such as *Kovovo and the EU* (2022) and *Building Bridges* (Residenz, 2007). In 2026, his book “What You Are Entitled To”, subtitled “The Fruits of Freedom”, was published by Edition Fazit; he also contributed to the anthology “Handbook on EU Lawmaking – A Practical Guide” (Springer) and to the “Yearbook of Politics 2025” published by the Political Academy. Mandl has contributed to several “Yearbooks of Politics” and “Yearbooks of Political Consultancy”, as well as to books such as “Stromaufwärts – Christian Democracy in the Postmodern Era of the 21st Century” (Böhlau 2003), ‘(R)Evolution Volkspartei’ (2014) and ‘10 Years of Black-Green, a Speculation’ (2013).
In his commentary in the weekly Monday morning mailing, Mandl invites readers to reflect on current issues. His podcast is called Mandl-Mikro.
A detailed CV of Lukas Mandl, including his professional career, can be found here.