Draft:Mihai Gheorghiu

Mihai Gheorghiu (born 16 August 1967) is a Romanian philologist, who was elected as a deputy of Bucharest in the 1996-2000 legislature, on the lists of the PNȚCD party. He served as Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as Head of the Department for relations with Romanians everywhere. He is currently deputy general director of the Museum of the Romanian Peasant.

In October 2015, Mihai Gheorghiu was appointed the president of the Coalition for the Family, the initiator of the failed constitutional referendum of October 6-7, 2018, which aimed to redefine the family in art. 48, para. (1) of the Romanian Constitution.

Biography
Mihai Gheorghiu was born in Bucharest. He graduated from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bucharest (1991). During the student period, he got involved in the student movement, being vice-president of the Student League (1990-1991) and one of the leaders of the University Square. He participated in the actions of the Civic Alliance and the Romanian Foundation for Democracy, being a founding member of the two civic organizations.

In recognition of his work in support of democracy and the rule of law, he was awarded the Freedom Award of the Conservative Party of Great Britain in 1990, a distinction which was presented to him, during the ceremony, by Margaret Thatcher and the two outstanding personalities of of the anti-communist resistance: Doina Cornea and Corneliu Coposu.

Mihai Gheorghiu later attended training courses organized by the Open Business School in Great Britain (1995) and the Robert Schumann Institute in Brussels – European studies (1996). He graduated in 1997 from the National Defense College, then he benefited from a NATO scholarship in the USA, at the invitation of the State Department (1999).

After graduating from the faculty, he became a professor of the history of Romanian literature at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest. He has published studies and reports on anthropology and ethnology in magazines and specialized works, as well as numerous articles and studies in the cultural press.

He was a member of the Christian Democratic Peasant National Party (PNȚCD). In the 1996-2000 legislature, Mihai Gheorghiu was a deputy from Bucharest, elected on the lists of the Romanian Democratic Convention. In this capacity, he was a member of the Committee for Defense, Public Order and National Security of the Chamber of Deputies, secretary of the Special Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate for the exercise of parliamentary control over the Foreign Intelligence Service (since October 1998) and a member of the Parliamentary Group of friendship with the Republic of Poland. During the same period, he was president of the Romania-USA Action Commission, a coordinating body for joint projects initiated by the Government of Romania, the US State Department and the Center for International and Strategic Studies. As a deputy, he was noted for his intense legislative activity, being the initiator and co-author of several draft laws (Public Information Law, Young Families Protection Law).

On March 18, 2005, Mihai Gheorghiu was appointed secretary of state in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coordinating the Department for relations with Romanians everywhere since November 2006.

In February 2013, Mihai Gheorghiu was accused by the US Embassy in Romania of allegedly organizing a boycott of a film evening at the Romanian Peasant Museum, an event organized in partnership with the US Embassy, in the LGBT History Month card. Among the slogans chanted by those who boycotted the screening are homophobic messages such as "Death to homosexuals" or "Shame on rags". Gheorghiu rejected the accusations, stating that he was only a witness, not an organizer.

Mihai is fluent in English, French and German.