Leonard Orban is not a well-known person in Romania, some Romanian independent journalists say, but this is due to change very soon.
On October 30, the president of the European Commission (EC) Jose Manuel Barroso, accepted the nomination of Orban, Romania’s secretary of state of the European integration ministry, as a European Commissioner. This happened after the country’s first candidate, Varujan Vosganian, was forced to withdraw amid allegations of corruption and secret police links.
Similarly to Bulgaria’s Meglena Kouneva, Orban will report for hearings at the end of November in the European Parliament. In the following weeks, the European Parliament will decide whether to accept or reject the nominations. If approved, Orban will be in charge of the multilingualism portfolio and will co-ordinate three directorates of the European Union. The field is currently within the portfolio of Slovakia’s Jan Figel, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism.
Romania’s independent news website Nine O’Clock reported on October 30 that Romania’s European integration minister Anca Boagiu, welcomed Orban’s nomination. The future commissioner has also the full support of the president Trajan Basescu and prime minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, who nominated him. In an interview given to the daily Jurnalul National, Basescu listed the criteria for the nomination, after the failure of Vosganian.
“He must be a person known in Brussels, not only by the EC, but also at the European Parliament. To be a person who is not suspected of having connections with controversial businessmen. The person must be the guarantee of the fact that he has arrived in Brussels through a reasonable political decision, not pushed by an economic group.”
The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romani (UDMR), the conservatives, the democrats and the liberals have also backed Orban, mainly because he is a technocrat. But there are some political parties that do not approve of his nomination.
“This nomination is not the result of constructive deliberations between the state institutions with attributions in this domain, it is the fruit of games of interests,” the Greater Romania Party deputy, Lucian Bolcas, told Romanian news agency Rompres.
The Social-Democrat Party also disapproves of Orban’s appointment. Beyond the fact that Leonard Orban is a technocrat, PSD Vice-President Titus Corlatean told Rompres, the PSD was unhappy with the whole process of designation of the European Commissioner, and especially the fact that the rulers had not consulted the Social-Democrats, “who have covered the biggest part of the negotiations”.
Most importantly, however, Orban has the support of representatives of the European Parliament. Jan Marinus Wiersma, vice-president of the Socialist group in the European Parliament, said that he considered Romania’s second proposed commissioner better than the first. “At least, Leonard Orban has expertise, he has already worked with European officials,” Jan Marinus Wiersma said in an interview with RFI Romania, quoted by the Nine O’Clock website.
And if a politician (or technocrat in this case) has the support of at least one independent medium, it is a good sign for the qualities of the person.
Orban was from the very start the best solution, as a technocrat long involved in the negotiations with Brussels, the editor of Romania’s largest online news agency Mediafax, Cristi Dimitriu, told The Sofia Echo. “He is politically independent and a low-profile personality, which is also admirable, in a country where politicians like to be in the spotlight. He has a lot of experience in dealing with the EU and understands better than anyone that a commissioner is not representing his country, but the EU.”
But perhaps most importantly, Dimitriu says, Orban has been the man behind the Bucharest-Brussels negotiations virtually since the beginning. Thus, his nomination as an EC commissioner is perhaps the natural development of his job.
Orban’s professional life
· 1993 - 2001 - Parliamentary counsellor on European and international affairs within the Romanian parliament, chamber of deputies;
· May 2001 - December 2004 - deputy chief negotiator with the European Union;
· December 2004 - April 2005 - chief negotiator with the EU;
· December 2004 - secretary of state of the European integration ministry, co-ordinating Romania’s preparation for accession to the EU;
Starting April 2005, co-ordinating Romania’s positions on European Union Affairs; Starting June 2006, head of Romania’s delegation for negotiating the accession to the European Economic Area.
