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Klaus Werner Iohannis (Romanian: , German: ; also spelled Johannis; born 13 June 1959) is the current President of Romania. He became leader of the National Liberal Party in 2014, after having served as leader of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania from 2002 to 2013. Iohannis was a physics teacher and a school inspector before entering full-time politics.
Iohannis was first elected mayor of the city of Sibiu in 2000, representing the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania. Although the German population of the once predominantly German-speaking city of Sibiu has declined to a tiny minority, Iohannis won a surprise victory and was re-elected by landslides in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Iohannis is credited with turning his city into one of Romania's most popular tourist destinations, and the city was declared the European Capital of Culture in 2007. In February 2013, Iohannis became a member of the National Liberal Party, accepting an invitation from Liberal leader Crin Antonescu, and was immediately elected the party's First Vice President, becoming the party's President the following year.
In October 2009, four of the five political groups in the Parliament, excluding the Democrat Liberal Party of then-President Traian Băsescu, proposed him as a candidate for the office of Prime Minister of Romania; however, Băsescu refused to nominate him despite the Parliament's adoption of a declaration supporting his candidacy.[2] He was again the candidate for Prime Minister of the National Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party in the elections in the same year.[3]
Iohannis is the first Romanian president to come from an ethnic minority.[4] He is a Transylvanian Saxon, part of Romania's German minority which settled in Transylvania in the 12th century. Thus, he is the fourth president of German origin from Eastern Europe in the post-communist period, after Rudolf Schuster (Slovakia) and Ferenc Mádl and Pál Schmitt (Hungary).[5]
Born in a house in the historic centre of Sibiu to a Transylvanian Saxon family, Klaus Iohannis is the eldest child of Susanne and Gustav Heinz Johannis. He has a younger sister, Krista Johannis (born 1963).[6] His father worked as a technician at an enterprise, while his mother was a nurse.[7] Both his parents as well as his sister emigrated from their native Sibiu (German: Hermannstadt) to Würzburg in Germany in 1992, acquiring citizenship there under the right of return granted by German nationality law,[8][9] as most other Transylvanian Saxons after the fall of the Iron Curtain. However, he chose to live and work in Romania.[10] As of 2014, his parents, sister and a niece live in Würzburg.[11] Iohannis has stated that his family settled in Transylvania in present-day Romania 850 years ago.[12] After graduating from the Faculty of Physics of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca in 1983, Iohannis worked as a high school physics teacher at various schools and colleges in Sibiu, including, from 1989 to 1997, the Samuel von Brukenthal Gymnasium in Sibiu, the oldest German-speaking school in Romania. From 1997 to 1999, he was Deputy General School Inspector of Sibiu County, and from 1999 until his election as mayor in 2000, he was the General School Inspector, head of public schools in the county.
Iohannis is fluent in
[47] law package and the national defense strategy.Big Brother but also on rejection of Justice requests for approval of arrest or prosecution of MPs. The topics of other meetings between the president and parties aimed the [46] The collaboration with socialist Prime Minister
A heavily disputed draft law proposed by Nicolae Paun ,leader of the Party of the Roma , regarding the amnesty of some misdemeanors and the pardoning of certain penalties was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies at the initiative of Klaus Iohannis and the party he led,[40] after PNL asked the Judiciary Committee 17 times to reject the draft law.[41]
On 16 November 2014 Klaus Iohannis was elected the fifth President of Romania, winning against the Social-Democratic candidate Victor Ponta. Iohannis won the elections with 54.43% of the votes. He took office on 21 December, when Traian Băsescu's term ended. His presidential campaign focused on fighting corruption and on improving the justice system.[36] Iohannis is also a supporter of a strongly pro-Western foreign policy.[37] Regarding the unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania, much discussed in the electoral campaign, Iohannis stated that "is something that only Bucharest can offer and only Chișinău can accept", and this "special relationship must be cultivated and enhanced especially by us [Romanian state]".[38][39]
At the second round on 16 November he was elected President of Romania with 54.43% of the votes.
PNL and PDL started in the summer of 2014 procedures to strengthen the political right. The two parties will eventually merge under the name PNL, but went for elections in an alliance: the Christian Liberal Alliance (Romanian: Alianța Creștin-Liberală). On 11 August the alliance chose Iohannis as its candidate for the presidential election in November[35] and so he was registered as an official presidential candidate. He received 30.37% of the votes in the first round.
In 2009, Iohannis had stated that he might possibly run for the office of President of Romania, although not in 2009.[33] Former Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu had said on 27 October 2009 and again on 23 April 2010 that he would like to see Iohannis become President of Romania.[34]
On February 20, 2013, Klaus Iohannis joined the PNL, announcing this during a press conference with Crin Antonescu. At a PNL extraordinary congress, he was elected First Vice President of the Party. In the meeting of 28 June 2014, he was elected President of the PNL with 95% of the votes.
[32][31] On 21 October the Parliament adopted with 252 votes for (of PSD, PNL, UDMR and minorities groups) and 2 against a declaration requesting the President to nominate Iohannis as Prime Minister.[30] Geoană and PSD leadership has held a second meeting with Iohannis in Bucharest in the evening of 18 October. UDMR, which the previous day announced it would also attend, declared in the morning that all their leaders are not in the city. PNL was present at the meeting by lower level representatives, after Antonescu announced in the morning he is on campaign in Cluj-Napoca.[29] Three days later, on 18 October, Geoană suggested Antonescu was trying to use Iohannis as an "electoral agent" for Antonescu's bid for president. In response, Antonescu told the press that Iohannis "is not the type of person that would let himself being used".[28] After the nomination of Croitoru, Antonescu, a candidate in the presidential election, stated that he would nominate Iohannis as Prime Minister if elected President.[26], the leader of the National Liberals, vowed his party would derail other nominations but Iohannis'.Crin Antonescu [27][26] On 14 October 2009 the leaders of the opposition
[21] On 7 November 2005 Iohannis was nominated as the "Personality of the Year for a European Romania" (
Iohannis established contacts with foreign officials and investors. Sibiu was declared the European Capital of Culture of 2007, along with Luxembourg (the bearer of the distinction in 1995). Luxembourg chose to share this honourable status with Sibiu due to the fact that many of the Transylvanian Saxons emigrated in the 12th century to Transylvania from the area where Luxembourg is today.[20] Sibiu, or Hermannstadt in German, was built by the Transylvanian Saxons, was for many centuries the cultural centre of that group, and was a predominantly German-speaking city until the mid 20th century. Many Germans left the city after World War II, and especially in 1990, within months of the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Throughout his tenure as mayor, he has worked to restore the town's infrastructure and to tighten the city administration. Iohannis is also widely credited with turning the city into one of Romania's most popular tourist destinations thanks to the extensive renovation of the old downtown.[18] During his first term, Iohannis worked with a city council that had a social democrat majority. Since 2004, during his second and third terms, his own party, FDGR, had the majority. Since 2008, FDGR has 14 out of 23 councilors, PDL has 4, PSD has 3, and PNL has 2.[19]
In 2000, the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania in Sibiu decided to back him as a candidate for mayor. Despite the fact that Sibiu's German minority had shrunken to a mere 1.6%, Iohannis was elected with 69.18% of the votes and has won three re-elections in a row, getting some of the largest electoral scores in the country: 88.7% of the vote in 2004, and 87.4% in 2008. He is the first ethnic German mayor of a Romanian city since Albert Dörr, who served from 1940 to 1945. The small German minority is popular in Romania, where they are often viewed as hard-working, precise and uncompromising. Many Romanians also remember that the country experienced some of its best moments under German kings over a century ago.[9]
He joined the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR) in 1990, and served as a member of its board of education in Transylvania from 1997, and a member of the local party board in Sibiu from 1998. In 2001, he was elected President of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania.
Iohannis is a member of the Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession in Romania, the German-speaking Lutheran church in Transylvania.[17]
They have no children. [16][15]
Romanian language, Liberalism, European People's Party, Senate of Romania, Social Democratic Party (Romania)
National Liberal Party (Romania), Traian Băsescu, President of the Senate of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, Romania
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Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, France, United Kingdom
Klaus Iohannis, Victor Ponta, Romania, Paris, Social Democratic Party (Romania)
Romania, Klaus Iohannis, Parliament of Romania, European Union, Traian Băsescu
Romania, Traian Băsescu, National Liberal Party (Romania), Ion Iliescu, Nicolae Ceaușescu