The Romanian government has been rocked by a spate of plagiarism cases. Several ministers accused of copying part of their doctoral thesis feel weakened. Lucian Bode, responsible for the interior, defended a dissertation on Romania’s energy security at the University of Cluj (north-west of the country) in 2018. Appointed Minister in December 2020, he should have made his doctoral thesis public but refused access to the manuscript. The university did the same on the grounds that the text had been published. However, there is no trace of this research work in the libraries and bookshops of Romania.
In defense, the University of Cluj argued in November 2022 that only 2.95% of the thesis in question had been plagiarized. “I welcome the result of this evaluation,” said Mr. Bode immediately. My dissertation is correct and I can keep my PhD. But independent media outlet PressOne soon revealed that 65 of the 194 pages of the thesis had been copied. Embarrassed by this investigation, the university immediately decided to review the manuscript again. “The suspicion of plagiarism has been confirmed and the ethical misconduct has deeply contaminated this thesis,” concluded the university’s ethics committee.
Dissatisfied with this reversal of the situation, the minister filed a lawsuit against the facility on January 5. He lost in the first instance on Tuesday 17 January. “The allegations against me are unjustified, they are politically motivated,” defended Bode.
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The prime minister was also concerned
He’s not the only one in Romanian politics to experience this awkward situation. In November 2021, the Minister for Research, Innovation and Digitization, the liberal Florin Roman, resigned from his post after an investigation by investigative journalist Emilia Sercan proved the plagiarism of his thesis. On September 29, 2022, it was the turn of Minister for National Education Sorin Cimpeanu, also a Liberal, to take off his apron for the same reason.
Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca has not been spared from these allegations. This 55-year-old general, who was appointed head of government in November 2021, was set to rule Romania with an iron fist. Nicknamed “the general of the desert,” he led the Red Scorpions battalion that served alongside the US Army during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003. The Romanian darling of the Pentagon also gained prominence in 2003 during the Battle of Nasiriyah, Iraq. As a political novice, Mr. Ciuca submitted these service documents to reassure Romanian public opinion, as the army is one of the country’s most respected institutions. But Emilia Sercan, a self-proclaimed “plagiarism hunter”, was interested in the head of government’s doctoral thesis on military science. And his verdict – 42 plagiarized pages out of 138 – uniquely tarnished the prime minister’s image as a soldier of integrity.
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