Kinga Göncz

Kinga Göncz (2007)

Kinga Göncz (born November 8, 1947 in Budapest ) is a Hungarian politician. From September 6, 2006 to April 20, 2009 she was Hungarian Foreign Minister . In the new government under Gordon Bajnai was on 20 April 2009 by Péter Balázs replaced as Foreign Minister.

In the elections to the European Parliament in June 2009, she ran for first place on the election list of the Socialist Party MSZP and was elected to the European Parliament.

Kinga Göncz is the daughter of the former Hungarian President Árpád Göncz .

Life

Göncz is a doctor and psychotherapist. She graduated from the Semmelweis University of Medicine in Budapest with a doctorate in 1972 and worked as a psychiatrist until 1978, then at the National Medical Institute. In 1978 she completed her specialist examination in psychiatry, and in 1982 in psychoanalysis. She played a key role in developing Hungary's first socio-political education program. In 1989 she became a junior professor at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. Since 1990 she has run a psychotherapeutic practice. From 1994 to 2002 she was head of the “Partners Hungary” institute, an American organization that deals with conflict management. In 2002 she was appointed Political State Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Social Affairs and Family. On June 15, 1994 she was appointed Minister without portfolio, but with responsibility for minorities and equality, from October 9th with the full title of "Minister for Youth, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Rights". After a cabinet reform, she was appointed Foreign Minister on September 6, 2006. She held this office until April 2009, when the new government under Gordon Bajnai took office.

Göncz is fluent in English and German. Since her appointment as Foreign Minister, she has regularly occupied one of the top places in the popularity surveys of opinion research institutes and has occasionally been named as a potential candidate to succeed the resigned Prime Minister Gyurcsány . However, it is not a member of the Socialist Party (MSZP), which has been in power since July 2008 , but is delegated by it.

Kinga Göncz is married and has two adult children and the grandmother of a boy.

Activities as an EU parliamentarian

As a member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament , Göncz is Deputy Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs .

She is a member of the delegation for relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo . As a deputy, Göncz is in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs , in the Committee on Petitions and in the delegation for relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) .

Web links

• Entry on Kinga Göncz in the European Parliament 's database of deputies

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1. ^ Website of the European Parliament