Maria Grapini

Maria Grapini (born 7 November 1954) is a Romanian businesswoman and politician. She served as the Deputy Minister in the Second Ponta cabinet. Since 2014, Grapini has been a Member of the European Parliament for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.[2]

Maria Grapini
MEP
Grapini at the OFSD meeting on 8 March 2014
Member of the European Parliament
for Romania
Assumed office
1 July 2014
Romanian Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, Commerce and Business Environment
In office
21 December 2012 – 5 March 2014
PresidentTraian Băsescu
Prime MinisterVictor Ponta
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
December 2012 – 25 March 2014
Succeeded byFlorică Bîrsășteanu
Personal details
Born (1954-11-07) 7 November 1954[1]
Berești, Romania[1]
Political partyPPU (2020–present)
Other political
affiliations		PC (2006–2015)
PPU (2015–2019)
PSD (2019–2020)
Alma materGheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași
OccupationPolitician
ProfessionBusinesswoman, textile engineer

Early life and education

Grapini was born on 7 November 1954. She graduated from the Berești Theoretical High School in 1973 and the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași in 1978.[1]

Career

Grapini held various positions at the Garofita Textile Enterprise in Timișoara until 1989.[3] Between 1995 and 2012, she was the president of the Council of Administration and general manager of Pasmatex.[4] She also served as the president of the Council of Administration of SC Pasmatex Conf International SA from 1998 to 2012.[3]

Grapini was the president of both the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Romania and the Light Industry Employers Federation. She was a member of the National Council of Exporters and Honorary Consul of India in Romania.[5]

Political activity

Between 2006 and 2015, Grapini was the vice president of the Conservative Party (PC).[1] In June 2015, Grapini announced her resignation from the party. She accused PC President Daniel Constantin of seizing the party and being responsible for its disappearance following the decision of unifying it with the Liberal Reformist Party.[6] A month later, Grapini joined the Humanist Power Party.[7]

In 2012, Grapini was elected as the deputy of the 37th constituency at Timiș County.[8] On 19 December 2012, she was appointed as the Minister for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Business and Tourism Environment in the Second Ponta cabinet.

Member of the European Parliament, 2014–present

In January 2014, the PC announced Grapini's resignation from the position due to her candidacy in the 2014 European Parliament election.[9] She later resigned from Parliament for the same reason.[10]

In the election, the PC ran candidates on common lists with the PSD and UNPR; Grapini was the fifth candidate.[11] The alliance won with 37.6% of the votes, and Grapini was elected.[12]

Grapini was re-elected at the 2019 European Parliament election in Romania.[13] Although not officially registered with the party, Grapini was the sixth candidate on the PSD list.[14]

In addition to her committee assignments, Grapini is part of the European Parliament Intergroup on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).[15]

Published works

Grapini has published four books.[16] The first was published in 2011 and contains interviews that Grapini had over time at Radio Timișoara.[17] In 2012, she published a novel, Viața, între scrieri și trans-scrieri, which contained a critical presentation signed by Cornel Ungureanu.[18] In an investigation published by Recorder, journalist Mihai Voinea showed that the novel contained several fragments copied from Wikipedia.[17]

Criticism

Grapini has attracted media criticism due to her frequent spelling and punctuation mistakes in her Facebook account.[19] In July 2015, a website named Grapinizer was launched, allowing users to convert grammatically correct Romanian language text into her writing style: "[it] adds redundant commas, changes the order of letters within words, and removes blanks spaces after punctuation marks."[19]

In August 2018, Grapini appealed to the National Council for Combating Discrimination due to a Facebook message. In the message, she offended the Romanian diaspora at an anti-government rally in the Victory Square, saying they had to "pay dumb taxes for the USR".[20] Later, Grapini said she disagreed with the statement and explained why she distributed the message:

I distributed to see that not all of the diaspora has the same point of view. A diaspora lady posted this. I posted one single time, without making any comments. My message is that no one can pretend to represent the entire diaspora.[21]

Recognition

In 2019, Grapini was the recipient of the Internal Market & Consumer Protection Award at the annual MEP Awards of The Parliament Magazine.[22]

References
  1. "Curriculum vitae". European Parliament. Archived from the original on 1 June 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  2. "Istoricul legislaturilor". European Parliament. Archived from the original on 30 June 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  3. Marina Bădulescu, ed. (29 May 2014). "Europarlamentar ales Maria Grapini (PC) – biografie". AGERPRES. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  4. "Guvernul Ponta2: Cine este Maria Grapini, ministrul pentru IMM". Ziare.com. 19 December 2012. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  5. Ioana Câmpean (19 December 2012). "BIOGRAFIE: Cine este Maria Grapini, nominalizată ministru pentru IMM-uri, Turism și Mediul de Afaceri în Cabinetul Ponta II". Mediafax. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  6. I. Roșca (3 April 2017). "Partidul Mariei Grapini, rupt din fostul PC al lui Dan Voiculescu, s-ar putea reactiva; este posibilă o fuziune cu ALDE condus de Tăriceanu, fără Daniel Constantin – surse". HotNews.ro. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  7. Rareș Constantinescu (2 July 2015). "Grapini s-a înscris în alt partid". Cotidianul. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  8. "Sinteza activității parlamentare în legislatura 2012–2016". Camera Deputaților. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  9. Mădălina Mihalache (29 January 2014). "Maria Grapini va renunța la funcția de ministru pentru a candida la europarlamentare. Ultimul scandal în care a fost implicată aceasta". Adevărul. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  10. "Maria Grapini a demisionat din Parlament". Ziare.com. 24 March 2014. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  11. I. R. (22 March 2014). "Alianța electorală PSD-UNPR-PC a depus la BEC listele candidaților pentru europarlamentare/ Victor Ponta: Scorul pe care noi ni l-am propus este de 35%". HotNews.ro. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  12. "Results of the 2014 European elections". European Parliament. Archived from the original on 3 June 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  13. Ioan Bucuraș (4 June 2019). "Catching the wave: Romania's parliamentary opportunity". Le Taurillon. Archived from the original on 7 June 2019.
  14. Maria Tufan (27 March 2019). "Misterul transferului Mariei Grapini la PSD: "E pe lista noastră − și, cu asta, gata!"". PressOne. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  15. Intergroup on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) European Parliament.
  16. Gheorghe Miron (14 October 2017). "Mărturisiri – a patra carte lansată de europarlamentarul Maria Grapini". Ziua de Vest. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  17. Mihai Voinea (19 July 2017). "Maria Grapini a scris un roman de dragoste cu pasaje copiate de pe Wikipedia". Recorder. Archived from the original on 11 June 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  18. Ion Spânu (24 July 2017). "O nouă impostoare în literatură: Maria Grapini, cea care plagiază de pe Wikipedia". Cotidianul. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  19. Liliana Micu (23 July 2015). "Grapinizer, aplicația online care vă "corectează" textele după modelul Maria Grapini". Mediafax. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  20. "Maria Grapini, reclamată la CNCD pentru mesajul anti-diaspora". Digi24. 9 August 2018. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  21. "Grapini explică distribuirea mesajului injurios pe Facebook". Știrile Pro TV. 9 August 2018. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  22. Hutchinson, Lorna (21 March 2019). "MEP Awards 2019: Heartfelt reactions from our winners". The Parliament Magazine. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
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