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 A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

for the

Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) is the Political groups of the European Parliament, political group in the European Parliament of the Party of European Socialists (PES). The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and ...

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.

Career

Grapini held various positions at the Garofita Textile Enterprise in

Timișoara Timișoara (, , ; , also or ; ; ; see #Etymology, other names) is the capital city of Timiș County, Banat, and the main economic, social and cultural center in Western Romania. Located on the Bega (Tisza), Bega River, Timișoara is consider ...

until 1989. Between 1995 and 2012, she was the president of the Council of Administration and general manager of . She also served as the president of the Council of Administration of SC Pasmatex Conf International SA from 1998 to 2012. 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 Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

in Romania.

Political activity

Between 2006 and 2015, Grapini was the vice president of the Conservative Party (PC). 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. A month later, Grapini joined the Humanist Power Party. In 2012, Grapini was elected as the deputy of the 37th constituency at

Timiș County Timiș () is a county (''județ'') of western Romania on the border with Hungary and Serbia, in the historical regions of Romania, historical region of Banat, with the county seat at Timișoara. It is the westernmost and the largest county in Ro ...

. 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 The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 22 and 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties field ...

. She later resigned from Parliament for the same reason. In the election, the PC ran candidates on common lists with the PSD and UNPR; Grapini was the fifth candidate. The alliance won with 37.6% of the votes, and Grapini was elected. Grapini was re-elected at the 2019 European Parliament election in Romania. Although not officially registered with the party, Grapini was the sixth candidate on the PSD list. In addition to her committee assignments, Grapini is part of the European Parliament Intergroup on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

Published works

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

Criticism

Grapini has attracted media criticism due to her frequent spelling and punctuation mistakes in her Facebook account. In July 2015, a website named Grapinizer was launched, allowing users to convert grammatically correct

Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian; , or , ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance languages, Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved fr ...

text into her writing style: " tadds redundant commas, changes the order of letters within words, and removes blanks spaces after punctuation marks." 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 The Romanian diaspora is the Romanians, ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in nearby states, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine, Hun ...

at an anti-government rally in the Victory Square, saying they had to "pay dumb taxes for the USR". Later, Grapini said she disagreed with the statement and explained why she distributed the message:

Recognition

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

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grapini, Maria 1954 births Living people Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Romania) MEPs for Romania 2014–2019 MEPs for Romania 2019–2024 Romanian engineers Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași alumni Members of the Romanian Cabinet Romanian women in business Women MEPs for Romania Women members of the Romanian Cabinet Social Democratic Party (Romania) politicians People from Berești 21st-century Romanian women politicians MEPs for Romania 2024–2029