The European Commission’s president-elect Ursula von der Leyen has accepted Romanian MEP Adina Valean for the position of commissioner for transport in her team, an EC spokesperson told local G4Media.ro.

Romania’s new Government sent two proposals for European commissioner, namely MEPs Siegfried Muresan and Adina Valean, prime minister Ludovic Orban said on Wednesday, November 6.

“Romania has today nominated two candidates for the position of Commissioner. Both candidates held interviews with the president-elect and performed well. The President-elect of the European Commission has decided that Adina Vălean will take over the Transport portfolio,” an EC spokesperson told G4Media.ro.

“Vălean is an experienced MEP who has already headed the ENVI Commission and is currently the chairman of the ITRE Commission. In her career, she has gathered experience on topics related to the Transport portfolio. He was rapporteur for the Connecting Europe Facility, which supports infrastructure in the fields of transport, energy and digital services,” the EC official explained.

Adina Valean, 51, is the wife of former Liberal leader Crin Antonescu. She became a member of the European Parliament in November 2007, after Romania joined the European Union. Before that, she was a deputy in Romania’s Parliament (2004-2007).

Valean is one of the most influential Romanian MEPs. She is currently the president of the European Parliament’s Commission for Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). Before that, she was a vice-president of the European Parliament (July 2014 to January 2017) and president of the Commission for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. She was fourth in a ranking of the most influential MEPs released by Vote Watch EU in April this year.

One controversy in her activity as an MEP is related to a conference she organized at the European Parliament together with Canadian group Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, in January 2010. The conference's theme was "sustainable and responsible mining" but there were no speakers to contradict the mining company, former MEP Renate Weber, a party colleague of Valean, said at that time. Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, part of Canadian mining group Gabriel Resources, was, at that time, lobbying for a large gold mining project in Romania, that would have used cyanide for gold extraction. In September 2013, Adina Valean said she didn't support the Rosia Montana gold mining project, after PNL took a firm position against the project.

Adina Valean graduated from the Faculty of Mathemathics of the Bucharest University in 1990 and worked as a Maths teacher from 1990 until 1997. She joined the National Liberal Party (PNL) in 1999.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Adina Valean Facebook page)