Péter Eckstein-Kovács (photo by László Horváth)

Péter Eckstein-Kovács (born July 5, 1956) is a Romanian lawyer and politician. A former member of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), he was a member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Cluj County from 1990 to 1992 and a member of the Cluj-Napoca city council from 1992 to 1996. That year, he was elected to the Romanian Senate, where he served until 2008, except for a stint as Minister-Delegate for National Minorities in the Radu Vasile cabinet (1999) and a break until he was elected again in November 2000.

He and his wife have three children.[1]

Biography

He was born to ethnic Hungarian parents in Cluj and studied law at the city's Babeş-Bolyai University from 1975 to 1980. From 1980 to 1981, he was a legal adviser in Miercurea-Ciuc, and since 1981 he has worked as a lawyer there and in Cluj-Napoca. He states that he was not a member of the Romanian Communist Party and did not collaborate with the Securitate.[1]

Following the 1989 Revolution, Eckstein-Kovács joined the UDMR as a founding member[1] and represented it in the Chamber from 1990 to 1992.[2] From that year until 1996, he was on the Cluj-Napoca city council,[1] after which he was elected to the Senate, also for Cluj County.[2] In January 1999, following the resignation of György Tokay, he was appointed Minister-Delegate for National Minorities in Radu Vasile's cabinet, serving until the cabinet fell that December.[3] He was elected to the Senate again in November 2000, serving until 2008. While there, his priorities included judicial reform and fighting corruption, as well as the environment and human rights.[1] He lost his seat at the 2008 election to the Democratic Liberal (PDL) candidate Şerban Rădulescu.[4] In January 2009, President Traian Băsescu named Eckstein to the newly created post of Presidential adviser for minorities, an office the creation of which the UDMR had called for since 1990. Eckstein was the only member of his party to vote against the President's 2007 impeachment, a position he reversed some months later, during a crisis over the naming of the Justice Minister.[5] In 2011, following the retirement of Béla Markó, he was one of three candidates who ran to become leader of the UDMR, finishing in second place with 22% of the vote and losing to Hunor Kelemen.[6] He resigned his post of adviser that September, citing his opposition to the Roşia Montană Project, an endeavor strongly backed by Băsescu.[7] At the 2012 local election, he ran for mayor of Cluj-Napoca, finishing third with 8.4% of the vote.[8] He resigned from the UDMR in 2018, after the party voted for changes to the penal code proposed by the governing Social Democrats (PSD).[9]

In the Chamber, Eckstein-Kovács was part of the Human Rights, Religious Affairs and Minorities Committee; in his first Senate term, he was on the equivalent committee in that body, as well as on the Judicial Nomination, Discipline, Immunity and Validation Committee. He also sat on that committee from 2000 to 2004 and headed it from 2004 to March 2008,[2] when he resigned as chairman because his UDMR colleagues did not vote for National Integrity Agency legislation as sponsored by the government.[5][10] He co-authored a number of legislative proposals and is a founding member of several civic associations.[1] Eckstein has sometimes had an uneasy relationship with the rest of his party,[4] for instance accusing it of being Romania's most misogynistic and calling for serious internal reforms.[11] He headed the UDMR's liberal platform.[1] Controversially, his liberal stance extends to advocating registered partnerships allowing unmarried same-sex and opposite-sex couples a number of rights, a step for which he publicly announced his support in February 2008.[12]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (in Romanian) About Me, retrieved March 12, 2009
  2. 1 2 3 (in Romanian) Profile at the Romanian Chamber of Deputies site; retrieved March 12, 2009
  3. ↑ "Radu Vasile Cabinet".
  4. 1 2 Raluca Dumitriu, (in Romanian) "Băsescu l-a luat pe Eckstein Kovacs consilier la Cotroceni" ("Băsescu Brings Eckstein Kovacs to Cotroceni as Adviser"), Gândul, 7 January 2009; retrieved March 12, 2009
  5. 1 2 Lavinia Dimancea, (in Romanian) Péter Eckstein-Kovács, Consilier Prezidenţial ("Péter Eckstein-Kovács, Presidential Adviser"), Jurnalul Naţional, 7 January 2009; retrieved March 12, 2009
  6. ↑ (in Romanian) Clarice Dinu, "Kelemen Hunor, noul preşedinte al UDMR. 'Doresc să fiu preşedintele puternic al unui UDMR puternic'" ("Kelemen Hunor, New President of the UDMR. 'I Wish to be the Powerful President of a Powerful UDMR'"), Evenimentul Zilei, 27 February 2011; retrieved February 28, 2011
  7. ↑ (in Romanian) "Consilierul prezidenţial Peter Eckstein-Kovacs a demisionat din cauza diferendului de opinie dintre el şi preşedinte privind Roşia Montană" ("Presidential Adviser Peter Eckstein-Kovacs Due to Difference of Opinion between Himself and the President about Roşia Montană"), Gandul, 1 September 2011; retrieved August 6, 2012
  8. ↑ (in Romanian) Laura Ciobanu, Carmen Vintilă, Ionuţ Fantaziu, Alexandra Postelnicu, "Rezultate Alegeri Locale 2012" ("Local Election Results 2012"), Evenimentul Zilei, 10 June 2012; retrieved June 13, 2012
  9. ↑ (in Romanian) "Peter Eckstein-Kovacs şi-a anunţat demisia din UDMR" ("Peter Eckstein-Kovacs Announces Resignation from UDMR"), Adevărul, 23 June 2018; retrieved June 23, 2018
  10. ↑ (in Romanian) "Peter Eckstein Kovacs demisionează din funcţia de preşedinte al Comisiei juridice din Senat" ("Péter Eckstein-Kovács Resigns as President of the Senate Judiciary Committee"), mediafax.ro, 4 March 2008; retrieved March 12, 2009
  11. ↑ (in Romanian) "Senatorul UDMR Peter Eckstein Kovacs afirmă că UDMR este o formaţiune misogină" ("UDMR Senator Péter Eckstein-Kovács Asserts that the UDMR Is a Misogynistic Party") Archived 2011-05-23 at the Wayback Machine, Adevărul, 26 January 2009; retrieved March 12, 2009
  12. ↑ (in Romanian) "Eckstein: Statul român ar trebui să acorde drepturi civile cuplurilor de homosexuali" ("Eckstein: The Romanian State Should Grant Civil Rights to Homosexual Couples"), Gândul, 22 February 2008; retrieved March 12, 2009
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