Dan Mircea Geoană (born 14 July 1958) is a Romanian politician and diplomat who served as the deputy secretary general of NATO between 2019 and 2024. He previously served as president of the Senate of Romania from December 2008 until he was revoked in November 2011. From April 2005 until February 2010, he was the head of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, ).
Geoană was the candidate of the party for the position of President of Romania in the 2009 presidential election which he narrowly lost to Traian Băsescu. He was dismissed from PSD on 22 November 2011 but rejoined the party in late 2012. From 2015 to 2018, he was the founder and leader of the Romanian Social Party. Additionally, he was also the president of Aspen Institute Romania, which is an apolitical and non-profit organisation.
On 17 July 2019, he was appointed deputy secretary general of NATO, replacing Rose Gottemoeller and assisted Jens Stoltenberg as No. 2 and Chairman of NATO's Innovation Committee, during a mandate marked in particular by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
He resigned 3 September 2024 to run for President of Romania in the election later that year, where he finished in sixth place.
Early life and career Geoană was born in Bucharest, on 14 July 1958. His father, Ioan Geoană, was a general in the Romanian Army from 1965 to 1992 and was head of the Civil Defense Command. He was among the defendants of the investigation into the Romanian Revolution of 1989. His mother, Elena Iuliana Geoană, was an engineer at ITB. Mircea Geoană grew up in the Cișmigiu and neighborhoods of Bucharest.
Education He graduated from Saint Sava High School in Bucharest in 1977, where he followed the real profile. Then he attended the Faculty of Mechanics at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute, as well as the Faculty of Law at the University of Bucharest. He attended the École nationale d'administration in Paris in 1992, as well as the course on Democratic Institutions of NATO.
Geoană obtained his PhD in world economy from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest on 18 July 2005. According to an analysis by investigative journalist , Geoană's 279-page thesis contains significant plagiarism, with 21 graphs and ten tables copied from other sources without proper attribution, and 72 pages with text content plagiarised from United States (US) presidential reports from 1999, 2002, and 2003. According to Șercan, there are 36 citations in the thesis, but 81 works listed in the bibliography. Geoană responded to the analysis, stating, "there were things we mentioned ... I don't know, I'm telling you that what I did with my doctoral thesis was done absolutely honestly and I don't feel anything outside the rules of that time. Now ... if the rules have changed in the meantime, that's something else." According to the ASE Ethics Committee, Mircea Geoana plagiarised only 43 lines and two tables, a decision that Emilia Sercan criticised.
During the period in which he was Romania's ambassador to Washington, he attended the World Bank Group's Managerial Development Program, within the Harvard Business School.
Family and personal life Mircea Geoană is married to Mihaela Geoană, an architect by profession, with whom he has a daughter (Ana Maria) and a son (Alexandru). Mihaela Geoană's brother, Ionuț Costea, was the president of Eximbank.
Interests Mihaela Geoană was President of the "National Red Cross Society of Romania" since April 2007, of the "Renaissance for Education, Health and Culture" Foundation, as well as of the "Millenium for Human Rights" NGO.
Mircea Geoană occupied, for two or three years, a place among the domestic football referees at Bragadiru and Voluntari. "I took it from below, from the Honor Division" – he said in an interview. "Only I know how much swearing I heard, but also how much physical conditioning I did. You cannot imagine how much passion there can be at an Honor Division match, at Bragadiru or Voluntari. I did it with passion." He is a supporter of the football team Rapid București.
Activity in civil society Geoană is the President of the Aspen Institute Romania, "an apolitical organization that aims to promote dialogue between the political, intellectual and business leaders." Geoană serves on the advisory council of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University, which is dedicated to accelerating the innovation and adoption of trusted technology to advances freedom. He is also Honorary President of the George Marshall Romania Association.
Diplomatic activity
A speaker of the French language, in 1990 he was hired by the Foreign Ministry as responsible for relations with France. The following year, Minister Adrian Năstase promoted him to head the European Affairs Directorate for relations with NATO, the European Union, the OSCE, the WEU, and the Council of Europe. In this capacity in 1991 he led the Romanian delegation to the committee of senior officials of the OSCE. In 1994 he became director general of the directorate general for Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa and in 1995 also for Europe and North America. Between 1993 and 1995 he was simultaneously the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry then led by Teodor Meleșcanu.
In 2019, Mircea Geoană was appointed Deputy Secretary General of NATO, after the position was opened to a person from Eastern Europe. During his term, he is chairman of NATO's Innovation Committee and under his leadership, NATO approves its digital transformation strategy. At the Brussels Forum panel discussion in 2024 celebrating 75 years of NATO, Geoană says "Now nations investing in new generation, defence and deterrence, investing in our partnerships, investing in innovation, investing in cyber, investing in space, investing in countering disinformation and this and fake news, I would say is nothing short of remarkable."
In 2024, Geoană was quoted as saying about the United States' foreign policy, "As much Europe needs America, America, I think needs all its allies. The strategic reality is that China is a formidable challenger and that Russia and China and all the others together will create massive attempts to disrupt American power. There is an intense aggressive interest from these countries to basically challenge the world order which was introduced after the end of the Second World War. In this epic struggle America will need not only its own strength, but also all the allies in the Alliance."
Political career Ambassador In February 1996 he was appointed to transfer to Washington, D.C., becoming the youngest ambassador in Romania's diplomatic corps at 37. A career diplomat, from 1996 to 2000 Geoană served as Romania's ambassador to the United States.
According to former PNȚCD leader Ion Diaconescu, in 1996, Geoană was close to his party, calling Diaconescu after the 1996 general elections and telling him that "we won against them" (i. e. - the Party of Social Democracy in Romania), with Geoană becoming close to the Social Democrats in the 2000s, after PNȚCD lost its popularity.
Foreign minister From 28 December 2000 to 28 December 2004, Geoană was the foreign minister of Romania, as part of the PSD government of Adrian Năstase. After the Romanian legislative elections of 2004, he was replaced by Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu from the Justice and Truth Alliance (DA).
As foreign minister on 11 January 2001, on the occasion of the permanent council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, he assumed the rotating presidency of the OSCE for one year. Among the objectives of his mandate he listed the resolution of the ongoing conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Moldova, and Chechnya. In 2005 he was then personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office for Georgia.
The Năstase government considered membership of NATO and the European Union a priority, succeeding in both cases. Relations with the United States were marked by various official visits and by the constant support of American diplomacy for Romania. The government and parliament guaranteed their support to the United States in President George W. Bush's War on terror, and in November 2002 the admission of Romania to NATO was approved with effect from March 2004.
In terms of negotiations with the European Union, despite the misgivings of the allies about the reform of the economy and the successes in the fight against corruption, the meeting of the heads of state and government of the EU 16–17 December 2004 ratified the admission of Romania, scheduling the signing of the treaty for 2005 and the accession alongside Bulgaria for 2007.
Thanks to the improvement of illegal emigration control policies, on 7 December 2001 the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the EU decided to abolish the visa system for Romanian citizens traveling in the Schengen Area starting from 1 January 2002.
The foreign policy of 2001–2004 was also distinguished by the normalization of relations with Russia. During the Romanian presidency of the OSCE, Geoană elaborated various projects for the Caucasus area without encountering obstruction by Russia. Negotiations for a treaty between the two countries began in October 2001 and concluded with the signing of the agreement in Moscow on 4 July 2003. Under the terms of the treaty, both states could join any political alliance or military they wanted. The topic of historical problems was not included in the provisions of the pact, but in a statement by the foreign ministers Geoană and Igor Ivanov.
From 1 July 2004 Geoană held the position of president of the United Nations Security Council for a month and in this capacity he was the first Western politician to visit Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty from the US army to the newborn Iraqi government. In 2001, Geoană was the chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
2004 local election While he was in office as foreign minister, the PSD presented him as its representative for the nomination as mayor of Bucharest in the local elections of 6 June 2004
In 2004, during the local elections in Romania, he ran for Mayor of Bucharest, but lost to incumbent mayor Traian Băsescu of the Democratic Party (PD), right in the first round. Five months later the party proposed Năstase for the presidency of Romania and Geoană as possible prime minister of a new PSD government resulting from the 2004 parliamentary elections. Năstase's defeat by Băsescu in the presidential elections, however, opened the door for a government led by the center-right coalition Justice and Truth Alliance, despite Geoană having already entered into negotiations for the birth of a coalition executive between the PSD and other minor forces.
Because of his statements between the first round and the presidential ballot, in which he maintained that the party was on the verge of achieving a government alliance with the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, in March 2005 the former head of state Ion Iliescu publicly called him "fool" (in Romanian "prostănac "). According to these, in fact, the rumors of a possible coalition with the UDMR would have had weight at the electoral level and contributed to the defeat of Năstase.
At the parliamentarians he was elected senator in the constituency of Dolj County. He was for the entire legislature president of the foreign policy commission of the senate and member of the joint one with the chamber of deputies for European affairs.
President of the Social Democratic Party