European politicians face deep embarrassment over plagiarism

Leaders driven from office over accusations of cheating on their doctoral theses

- Jonathan Eyal

LONDON - As a rule, politicians are forced to resign from office because they are embroiled in scandals about their conduct or their financial arrangements, or occasionally, an unacceptable remark they made or were accidentally overheard making in public.

But in Europe, another spectre is toppling politicians from power: plagiarism, the discovery that they cheated in obtaining the higher university degrees they claim to hold.

The government of Romania is struggling to remain in power now that a number of its high-ranking ministers are facing or have faced accusations of having copied large parts of their doctoral theses.

Mr Lucian Bode, the eastern European country's interior minister, obtained a doctorate with a thesis on Romania's energy security at the highly reputable Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, Transylvania.

Appointed minister in December 2020, he should have made his doctoral thesis public for anyone to consult, but he refused public access to the manuscript.

Enterprising local journalists thought they knew the reason for this secrecy: they could find no trace that the minister undertook any research work in the libraries and bookstores of Romania.

And soon enough, claims surfaced in the local media that no fewer than 65 pages out of Mr Bode's 194-page doctoral thesis may have been copied from the works of others.