Mircea Geoană, NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, illegally held the status of doctoral student for at least six years, claims Romanian journalist Emilia Sercan.
After showing that Mircea Geoană substantially plagiarized in the doctoral thesis he defended nearly 20 years ago at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Emilia Șercan returns with new information on this topic.
In an article published on Tuesday by Press One, Emilia Șercan shows that Mircea Geoană illegally held the status of doctoral student for at least six years. The current NATO Deputy Secretary should have been expelled after 1998.
Here are the most important pieces of information presented by the journalist:
- Mircea Geoană held the status of doctoral student at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE) for at least six years, between 1998 and 2004, even though he no longer met the legal criteria. He obtained the doctoral title with the grade "very good" after 12 years and 28 days from his enrollment as a doctoral student on June 21, 1993.
- In a written response received from ASE, the university states that it does not know if Geoană attended full-time or part-time studies, an important detail to determine the period during which he legally held the status of doctoral student.
- The 1993 legislation did not provide for part-time doctoral studies, which means that Geoană was automatically admitted to full-time studies. According to the legislation at that time, the duration of the training period was "at most 4 years."
- ASE specifies in the written response that, based on the documents in the file, it is not clear the type of education Geoană was enrolled in, but "the duration of the doctoral program corresponds to part-time education."
- According to the 1993 legislation, Geoană should have completed his doctoral studies in 1997. However, in February 1996, Geoană assumed the position of Romania's Ambassador to the United States of America. ASE specifies in the written response that "for a similar duration (6 months), the interruption of the doctoral training program was approved by Decision no. 71/06.05.1998, based on the request submitted by Mr. Geoană on April 6, 1998."
- The Rector of ASE explained that Geoană requested a one-year study interruption, but the university approved only 6 months, with immediate effect.
- Just one month after his request was approved, even though he was in the study interruption period, Geoană defended two mandatory papers in the training program, both on the same day: June 2, 1998.
- Geoană was not entitled to defend those papers at that time, a fact confirmed by ASE's Rector, Nicolae Istudor.
- Therefore, Mircea Geoană should have defended his doctoral thesis in June 1997, if the 4-year study completion period specified at enrollment had been respected. Taking into account extension and study interruption requests, the deadline for defending the doctoral thesis was extended until June 1998. After this period, Mircea Geoană was outside the legal deadlines, which should have led to his expulsion by ASE.
- ASE did not clearly explain the provisions that allowed Mircea Geoană to be a doctoral student between June 1998 and September 30, 2004, the date when all doctoral students enrolled before 1996 were granted an 11-month grace period for thesis defense.
- However, ASE's Rector, Nicolae Istudor, explained how the 2004 extension was reached, which allowed Geoană to obtain his doctorate. In 2004, the Doctoral School secretariat at ASE analyzed the situation of doctoral students who no longer legally met this status and forwarded to the ASE Senate Executive Board "a request for expulsion" of students enrolled before 1996. Instead of deciding on expulsion, the ASE Senate Executive Board approved, on September 30, 2004, an extension of these students' training period by 11 months, until August 1, 2005.
- When asked if Geoană should have been automatically expelled, Istudor said: "Even if things were like that, what could we do now to correct something from 20 years ago? It's complicated. What could I do as a rector? Indeed, with a pertinent analysis, if both the documents and the law help us, we can make a statement that, yes, it was beyond the deadline. But, once again, at that time the legislation was so ambiguous that the Senate Board granted an extension. It is not known whether it had a legal basis or not."
More details about Mircea Geoană's doctoral student status on PressOne.ro.