Petre Roman

Petre Roman (1989)

Petre Roman (born July 22, 1946 in Bucharest ) is a Romanian politician . After the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu , he was Romania's first democratic prime minister from December 1989 to October 1991 . Later he was chairman of the Partidul Democrat (PD) from 1993 to 2001 , president of the Romanian Senate from 1996 to 2000 and foreign minister from 1999 to 2000.

Family, education, job

Petre Roman's father was the communist politician Valter Roman (actually Ernst / Ernő Neuländer ), who had Jewish roots and who had fought on the side of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. His mother, Hortensia Vallejo, was a Spanish exile. The couple married in Moscow and moved to Romania after World War II.

Roman studied power engineering at the Bucharest Polytechnic from 1963 to 1968 . He won a scholarship for postgraduate studies in France: in 1971 he received a Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA) at the Université "Paul Sabatier" Toulouse III , and in 1974 he received his doctorate in engineering from the Toulouse Institute for Fluid Mechanics . His dissertation dealt with natural ventilation of open channels . After his return to Romania, he taught from 1976 as a lecturer (şef de lucrări) , later as a junior professor (conferențiar) at the energy technology faculty of the Bucharest Polytechnic University. In 1985, Roman was appointed to a chair in hydraulics and hydraulic machines at the same faculty.

Petre Roman was married to Mioara Georgescu from 1974 until their divorce in 2007, with whom he has two children. In 2009 he married Silvia Chifiriuc, 26 years his junior, with whom he has a son.

Political career

Leader of the National Rescue Front: v. l. No. Dumitru Mazilu , Ion Iliescu and Petre Roman, December 23, 1989

Roman took part in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 . He joined the Provisional Front Council for National Salvage (Consiliul Frontului Salvării Naționale, CFSN) on December 22nd . This appointed Roman after the overthrow and execution of the long-time dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu on December 26, 1989 as prime minister of a transitional government. In the first free election in May 1990 , which the National Rescue Front (FSN) won with 66% of the vote, Roman won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies . The parliament then confirmed him as head of government. At the same time, the FSN leader Ion Iliescu was elected president with 85%. After the " Mineriaden " - the miners' unrest in the Romanian capital Bucharest - Roman resigned from his office as Prime Minister on September 26, 1991.

In March 1992, Roman began to transform the National Salvation Front into a social democratic party based on the Western European model. This led to a falling out with his previous political companion, President Ion Iliescu. This then left the National Rescue Front with his supporters, they founded the Democratic Front for National Rescue (FDSN), from which the Social Democratic Party (PSD) later emerged. In the early election in September 1992, Romans FSN came in third place with only 10.2%, while Iliescu's FDSN won the election. Roman was confirmed as a member of parliament. The FSN renamed itself in March 1993 in Partidul Democrat (PD; Democratic Party). This elected Roman as the first party chairman. Under his leadership, the PD was accepted into the Socialist International (SI) and the Social Democratic Party of Europe (SPE) in 1996 .

In 1996 Roman ran for the presidential election , supported by Uniunea Social-Democrată , an electoral alliance made up of PD and the also social-democratic PSDR . He reached third place with 20.45%. In the runoff election, he called on his supporters to support the Christian Democrat Emil Constantinescu , who ultimately won the election. In his simultaneous parliamentary election, Roman won a seat in the Senate. The Upper House of Parliament elected him its President. After the election, the Social Democratic Union (including the PD) formed a coalition with the Convenția Democrată Română (CDR) of Christian Democrats and National Liberals. From December 22, 1999 to December 28, 2000 Roman was Romanian Foreign Minister in Mugur Isărescu's cabinet .

In the 2000 presidential elections , Roman only won 3% of the vote. However, he retained his seat in the Senate, now as a representative of the opposition to Adrian Năstase's PDSR government. At the party congress in May 2001, the then Bucharest mayor and later President Traian Băsescu challenged Roman in the election of the PD chairman, and Băsescu prevailed in a fighting vote. This transformed the PD into a more conservative party. Roman then resigned from the PD, but retained his mandate as a senator. He then founded the Social Democrat-oriented Forța Democrată (FD; Democratic Force) as a new party, but could not achieve any electoral success with it. In the 2004 presidential election , Roman came seventh with 1.4% of the vote. In the simultaneous parliamentary election, his FD received only 0.8%, which means he was also eliminated from the Senate. In the parliamentary elections in 2008 , he ran for the National Liberal Party , but won no mandate.

Web links

Commons : Petre Roman  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Petre Roman: Aeration naturelle des écoulements à surface libre. Dissertation, Univ. Toulouse III 1974.
2. ↑ When the dictator fled to the roof
3. ↑ Mediafax.ro of June 6, 2009 , accessed December 5, 2009 (Romanian)
4. ↑ apropo.ro of April 10, 2010 , accessed on July 29, 2011 (Romanian)