Romanian Florin Badita, the founder of local civic group Coruptia Ucide (Corruption Kills), was recognized as European personality of the year at the European Leadership Awards 2018.

He made it to this category’s shortlist in early April this year, following public votes. The Romanian got most of the votes, namely 38.6%, being followed by Hungarian activist Andras Fekete-Gyor – 19%, and Polish politician and activist Barbara Nowacka – 16.8%. A jury of experts decided the final winner.

Emmanuel Macron, Edyta Kocyk, Boyan Slat and Krisztian Imre were the winners of the four other categories of the European Leadership Awards 2018. Read more about them here.

Florin Badita, 29, founded the civic group Corruption Kills after the Colectiv club fire that killed 64 people. The civic group tries to fight corruption in Romania, being mainly active on Facebook. It was also involved in most of the street protests that have been taking place in Romania over the past year. Earlier this year, he was included on Forbes’ 30 under 30 Europe – Law and Policy list, which includes young people with “a common mission to build a better future for Europeans”.

The European Leadership Awards recognize outstanding achievers in business, politics, entrepreneurship, and innovation, being split into five categories, namely the European leader of the year, the European personality of the year, European entrepreneur of the year, European innovator of the year, and CEO of the year.

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Florin Badita on Facebook)