Radio România Internațional

Tag: politicians

Résumés and political responsibility

The Romanian minister for research and digitisation, Liberal Florin Roman, has resigned. He left
the Nicolae Ciucă cabinet less than a month since taking office, following a
journalist investigation into his education and qualifications.

According to journalists,
Florin Roman’s resume includes a B.A. degree he has not obtained, and a
plagiarised B.A. thesis. Moreover, he claims to have published a book, which is
not to be found.

Roman denies the accusations
and claims he stepped down to make sure the image of the Cabinet is not
affected. He argues he is the innocent victim of media and political lynching
tied to deals of tens of billion euros for the implementation of digital solutions
for the Government. His office is temporarily taken over by the energy minister
Virgil Popescu.

Some of the accusations
made by journalists are backed by the leaders of the Babeş-Bolyai University
in Cluj-Napoca, who said Florin Roman never received a degree at this
university, but only a diploma certifying that he attended a college in Alba
Iulia, near Cluj.

Florin Roman was also, for
a while, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and is one of the most influential
members of the National Liberal Party. He believes the leader of USR party in
opposition, Dacian Cioloş, has coordinated the attacks against him, and
threatened to sue. In response, Dacian Cioloş, who was a prime minister in
2015-2017, said he was not impressed by the threat, and emphasised that Roman’s
resignation was a necessary step. Florin Roman is
no victim. Florin Roman is the representative of a political class
that destroyed the best Romania had, Dacian Cioloş also said.

Several high-ranking
Romanian politicians have been accused of plagiarism in recent years. Perhaps
the most tale-telling image of this phenomenon came in 2016 from the former
Social Democratic deputy and Bucharest sector 3 mayor Robert Negoiță, accused
of plagiarism in his Ph.D. thesis and prosecuted for it at the time, who said, Everybody
was doing it, so I did, too. Robert Negoiță graduated high-school at the age
of 31, in 2003, and one year after completing his second university programme
in 2009 he was already enrolled in a doctoral programme.

But
the most resounding plagiarism case in Romanian politics involved the former
Social Democratic leader, Victor Ponta, who eventually resigned as prime
minister in 2015, although for different reasons. He was probed into for
copyright infringements in his Ph.D. thesis, but the Prosecutor General’s
Office closed the case.

Other
politicians accused of plagiarism include ex-PM Mihai Tudose, former deputy PM and
defence minister Gabriel Oprea, the ex-interior minister Radu Stroe, and former
defence minister Mihai Stănișoară.

In
2020, Romania ranked 69th in the Transparency International’s
Corruption Perceptions Index. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

16 December 2021
Sentence in “Bute Gala” case

For Elena Udrea, a former Minister of Development in the right-of-centre Cabinet in 2008-2012, legal trouble got serious with the sentence she received in the court of first instance in what is known as the “Bute Gala case. The High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest handed Udrea a six-year imprisonment sentence, also forcing her to pay damages of 3 million euros. Indicted in April 2015, Udrea was found guilty for bribe taking and abuse of office, while charges of forgery of documents under private signature for unlawfully obtaining European funds were dropped.

Also prosecuted in the case were the former president of the Romanian Boxing Federation, Rudel Obreja, who got a five-year prison sentence, and former Economy Minister Ion Ariton, who was acquitted. Prosecutors accused the two of unlawfully using public funds to organize a boxing gala for the former world champion Lucian Bute. The other people indicted in the case admitted to their wrongdoings and got off with suspended prison sentences. Elena Udrea said the sentence is not just unfair, but an abuse and a “masquerade.

The case once again confirms that the National Anticorruption Directorate, the object of constant praise by the European Commission as part of its annual reports on Romanias progress in the field of the judiciary, continues to do its job undisturbed. The conviction of Elena Udrea, a close political associate of former President Traian Basescu, is the latest in a series of investigations of high-profile officials from Romania, commonly seen as one of the most corrupt EU Member States. The special relation with president Basescu acted as a springboard, helping Udrea secure her seat in the Cabinet. Some political pundits even say that her influence with the President made her say weigh heavier than that of the acting Prime Minister back then, Emil Boc, at a time when Romania was struggling to emerge from economic recession.

In 2008-2012 the Romanian media was permeated with stories of the huge leverage Udrea was holding as Minister of Development, overseeing the spending of hefty budgets. Udrea gave the green light to a number of smaller- or larger-scale projects, which more often than not were to the benefit of local elected officials from the ranks of her own party, the Liberal-Democratic Party, which in the meantime merged into the National Liberal Party. In recent years, Elena Udrea has taken a step back from politics, seemingly trying to cope with the legal consequences of her term in office.

(translated by: Vlad Palcu)

29 March 2017
Romania’s politicians and the fight against corruption

Compared with the beginning of the year, when new arrests were being made every day in Romania, this month has been relatively quiet. The former Constitutional Court judge Toni Grebla has grabbed all headlines recently. He resigned last month following allegations of corruption and was subsequently detained for involvement in a number of corruption-related crimes. On Wednesday however, the Supreme Court ruled that investigations would continue, but that Grebla does not have to remain under arrest.

The allegations against Grebla include influence peddling, commercial activities that were incompatible with his position as a Constitutional Court judge and the creation of an organised crime group. He is also suspected of trying to export food products to the Russian Federation via Turkey, thus violating Russia’s ban on imports from the European Union.

Not to mention his attempt to sell 50 goats of an allegedly “special breed” for 300 euros each, a failed transaction which ultimately put an end to the public career of one of the longest-serving and paradoxically, most respected politicians in Romania. He entered the political stage 25 years ago, very soon after the toppling of the communist regime, as the head of the post-communist left in the southwestern county of Gorj. He later served two terms as Member of Parliament before being appointed a Constitutional Court judge.

An equally familiar figure in Romanian politics, Laszlo Borbely is a member of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and has been an MP since 1990. He became the target of anti-corruption investigations four years ago, when a case was opened against him for influence peddling and bribe taking. The Anti-Corruption Directorate asked Parliament to lift Borbely’s immunity, but its request was rejected on Wednesday. This has fuelled speculations about an agreement between the parliamentary majority dominated by the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians to support the government in Parliament.

The Social Democrats firmly rejected the scenario, while the Liberals in opposition say an agreement to reject the prosecutors’ request would have been impossible. According to the media, Parliament, which is extremely unpopular, will become even more so, because it will again be accused of shielding its members suspected of breaking the law. At any rate, the result of Wednesday’s vote is hard to explain, all the more so as three weeks ago, the Chamber of Deputies’ legal committee was in favour of lifting Laszlo Borbely’s parliamentary immunity.

12 March 2015
New cases in the fight against corruption

The Romanian High Court of Cassation and Justice has given another final ruling against a former minister charged with corruption. As Minister of Sports and Youth, in 2009, Monica Iacob Ridzi, as the main authorizing entity, decided to illegally outsource the organization of the events on Youth Day to several companies of her choice. The damage established by prosecutors stands at 640 thousand Euros, and for what she did Monica Iacob Ridzi, who is also a deputy in Romania’s parliament, was found guilty of abuse of office and sentenced to five years in prison. Another seven people have also been convicted in the same case.

Big names in Romania’s political world but also other officials in administration have been sentenced lately or are being prosecuted for corruption. They include the former transport minister Miron Mitrea, sentenced by the Supreme Court to two years in prison for faulty deeds relating to the renovation of his mother’s house. The main accusations were bribe- taking, and Miron Mitrea will also have to pay 67 thousand Euros. The former head of the State Construction Inspectorate, Irina Jianu, who gave the bribe in the form of refurbishing works, in exchange of keeping her position, was also sentenced to five months in prison.

The anti-corruption prosecutors have extended their investigations to another case, in which the former tourism and development minister Elena Udrea is being held in temporary custody. The Chamber of Deputies is expected to rule on a new request for temporary custody, submitted by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate on Elena Udrea’s name. She is being accused of receiving over 1 million Euros in exchange for helping several companies that had contracts with the state.

The Chamber is to make a decision on that matter early next week. Until then, the deputies are supposed to solve another problem which is actually a first: Elena Udrea’s position of MP gives her the right to come before her colleagues and present her standpoint, but she cannot enter the Parliament building handcuffed. Elena Udrea, a very close collaborator of the former President, Traian Basescu, was last week taken in temporary custody for 30 days, charged with abuse of office, bribe taking, influence peddling, money laundering and false declaration of assets. Udrea has rejected all accusations and says that she is the victim of a revenge campaign, triggered by her filing a complaint against the current interim director of the Romanian Intelligence Service, general Florian Coldea.

17 February 2015