IV, he played a central role in the parliamentary implementation of capital requirements agreed in the Basel III accords. He helped negotiate a 2013 agreement on an EU-wide cap on bankers' bonuses. Alongside Liêm Hoang Ngoc, he later co-drafted a controversial 2014 report highlighting problems with the European Union-led bail-outs of Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Ireland during the European debt crisis. In addition to his committee assignments, Karas has been the chairman of the parliament's delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee since 2014. He previously serves as member of the delegation for relations with Japan and as substitute for the delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China. Within his political bloc, the centre-right European People's Party Group, Karas served as the group's spokesperson on economic affairs from 2002 until 2004 and as vice-president and treasurer from 2004 until 2011. From 2011 until 2019, he led the ÖVP delegation within the EPP group. In the 2009 European elections, the ÖVP leadership replaced Karas by Ernst Strasser as its lead candidate for the European Parliament; Strasser later had to resign as a consequence of the 2011 cash for influence scandal. Ahead of the 2014 European elections, the ÖVP re-nominated Karas as its lead candidate. At the time, he was considered by Austrian media as a possible successor to Johannes Hahn as Austrian nominee for European Commissioner. Since the 2019 European Parliament election, Karas has been serving as one of its Vice-Presidents; in this capacity, he is part of the Parliament's leadership under President David Sassoli. In 2021, Karas was appointed to the EPP group's task force for proposing changes to its rules of procedure to allow for “the possibility of the collective termination of membership of a group of Members rather than just individual membership”, alongside Esteban González Pons, Jan Olbrycht, Esther de Lange and Paulo Rangel. In late 2021, Karas announced his candidacy to succeed Sassoli as President of the European Parliament. The EPP selected Roberta Metsola as their candidate for President to succeed Sassoli, and she was elected President on 18 January 2022. On the same day, Karas was elected First Vice-President of the European Parliament. Political positions Following the 2014 elections, Karas joined fellow MEPs Sven Giegold, Sylvie Goulard, Sophie in 't Veld and Alessia Mosca in an open letter aimed at exerting pressure on the President of the European Commission and national government leaders during