Two European ministers have resigned from their positions in the last week, following allegations of plagiarism and deceit in their professional work.
On 7 December, Bulgarian candidate for foreign minister Dimitar Gardev was accused by Exit’s partner EURACTIV.bg of lying on his CV about his work experience. The portal reported how he claimed he had worked at the European Parliament as a “counsellor in the AFET and SEDE committees”, Parliaments committees on foreign affairs and security and defence.
When contacted, a spokesperson for European Parliament said, “European Parliament administration has no records of Mr Dimitar Gardev as a member of staff in its secretariat.” Furthermore, MEP Elene Yoncheva confirmed that he worked as an assistant to her, but in her office in Sofia.
Gardev was pipped to the post days later, likely due to the scandal.
Then in Romania, Minister of Digitalisation Florin Roman has resigned following claims he included a publication he did not author, on his curricul vitae. Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca asked him to clarify the situation to decide whether Roman was fit for the position, which requires technical know-how.
He resigned on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in Albania, there have been many incidences where politicians have been suspected of plagiarising their dissertations or misleading the public about their qualifications.
In 2020, Minister of Education Evis Kushi was publicly asked to verify whether scientific articles, published in her name, were not plagiarised. Student protestors asked her to use anti-plagiarism software purchased by the ministry, on her own work.
One protestor, Migen Qeraxhi claimed, “two scientific articles of the Minister of Education have raised question marks for plagiarism. One showed it contained up to 90% plagiarism.”
Ervin Demo, Mayor of Berat and one-time deputy education minister was found to have lifted large portions of a book by Janet Morrison on international business, and included them in an article published in Elsevier journal. Concerns were also raised over a co-authored article with Blerina Gjylameti, a prominent Socialist Party member.
Demo was forced to resign, and now holds the mayorship of Berat in the south of the country.
Minister of Health Ogerta Manastirliu was also accused of plagiarism when it was discovered that significant amounts of her PhD thesis were lifted from an MSc thesis by Fannie Mnisi from the University of South Africa. She retained her position.
Mimi Kodheli, a PS deputy was also accused. Her 2015 dissertation was found to include direct translations (three pages worth) from Frederic Mishkin’s 2000 paper. She was also accused of plagiarizing two IMF papers in her dissertation.
Head of the PS parliamentary committee, Taulant Balla has also been accused of plagiarism at University in Romania. Receiving summa cum laude for his dissertation, he paraphrased large swathes of it while other parts showed clearly in plagiarism software.
The majority of those implicated have refused to address the claims publicly and still retain their positions.
