György Frunda
Since 1992, Frunda has been a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), serving as president of the delegation since September 2004, and sitting with the European People's Party (EPP).
[1] His father Károly (known in Romanian as Carol) was a member of the resistance movement in opposition to the Communist regime: in 1956, he joined Ioan Faliboga and other young people in organizing clandestine committees that took inspiration from the Hungarian Revolution.
[1] Running in the 1996 presidential election, which were eventually won by the Romanian Democratic Convention's Emil Constantinescu, Frunda was supported by the UDMR and received 761,411 votes (6.02% of the ballot).
[1] Welcoming reconciliation with Hungary and measures leading to the Romania's European integration at a time when the UDMR joined Victor Ciorbea's Democratic Convention cabinet, Frunda argued that this process had made unlikely the resurfacing of violent incidents such as the March 1990 ethnic clashes in Târgu Mureș.
[8] During the electoral campaign, Frunda invited the gay rights organization Accept to take part in a meeting with youth in Bucharest, at a time when Article 200 of the Romanian Penal Code, which criminalized homosexual relations, was being brought under public scrutiny.
[1] In January 2001, Frunda was among the 38 parliamentarians from 18 countries who signed an appeal to have Ilie Ilașcu, an ethnic Romanian Moldovan citizen who had been tried and sentenced to death by a Transnistrian court, to be retried in a Council of Europe member state.
[12][13] His statement to the press argued that Wass, unlike Romania's World War II dictator Ion Antonescu (who had been tried in a similar context), was the victim of procedural mistakes.
[16][17][18] He notably met with Premier Aigars Kalvītis, and gave a positive assessment of the way in which Latvia had carried out its obligations, while pointing out that Russian Latvians still faced some problems in naturalization and voting rights.
Following the two world wars in the 20th century, national borders were redrawn and, as a result, parts of the kin-state now live in the territory of one of the neighbouring states, where they represent 'national minorities or communities'".
[24] A controversy was sparked in summer 2006, when files kept by the Securitate (Communist Romania's secret police) on Frunda and 28 other politicians, including the UDMR's Markó and Attila Verestóy, were declassified by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).
[30] Several days later, Dinescu, who took the decision of exposing what he saw as the CNSAS' problems, clarified his position in the case involving Frunda: "It was a complicated file and I could not vote in clear conscience, not knowing certain details".
[31] The National Initiative Party's Raluca Șandru, an independent member of the Chamber, publicly appealed for the CNSAS to reconsider its decision and recall Frunda for questioning.
[33] Referring to the UDMR faction formed around Sándor Kónya-Hamar, Tibor Toró, and Péter Eckstein-Kovács, he argued its alleged policy of "not providing viable written-down alternatives denotes [its] political weakness".
On the occasion, Liiceanu asked Frunda to explain how the UDMR could tolerate being on the same pro-impeachment camp as the Greater Romania Party; according to Dilema Veche political commentator Cristian Ghinea, the reply was unsatisfactory.
"[34] In June–July 2007, Frunda was at the center of a controversy provoked when Dick Marty, a Swiss representative to the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, publicized his report on the existence of black sites allegedly maintained by the American Central Intelligence Agency in several Eastern European countries (Romania included).
Upon announcing his own candidature in September, György Frunda indicated that having two contenders from the Hungarian minority could result in the community not being at all represented in Brussels, and argued that Tőkés would have done best to withdraw from the race.
[37] Frunda eventually won the MEP seat but, on December 1, 2007, announced that he was giving it up in favor of party colleague Iuliu Winkler, explaining that he was being instead considered for the presidency of the PACE Judicial Committee.
"[38] Frunda was subsequently involved in discussions about prison reform, speaking in favor of judicial methods to tackle the widespread inmate overcrowding, and supporting a more generalized use of parole.
[39] Frunda again won a Senate seat after running in the November 2008 election, the first such suffrage to result in mixed member proportional representation at a newly established electoral college level.
[40] In October, before Social Democratic leader Mircea Geoană was elected Senate Chairman, Béla Markó had announced that he favored Frunda for that office, were UDMR in a position to nominate a candidate.
[44] Writing in 2002 for România Literară review, academic Mircea Mihăieș contrasted Frunda's "new tone and elegance" of the 1990s with his support of Social Democratic moves to keep dignitaries' fortunes under secrecy.
[44] Himself hailing from Democratic Liberal politics, President Băsescu also went on record with a claim that, in proposing the vote, Frunda had acted "against Romania's interests", compromising its standing and credibility within the European Union.
