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Corina Suteu nominated for culture minister
Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos nominated on Tuesday state secretary Corina Suteu for culture minister, as minister Vlad Alexandrescu has been dismissed, the Government announced in a media release.
"As I had announced last week, I have decided today to revoke Mr. Vlad Alexandrescu from the position of culture minister. I have also sent today to President Klaus Iohannis the proposition to nominate as culture minister Mrs. Corina Suteu, as I wish to continue the reform process," the document quotes PM Ciolos as saying.
"I have recommended today to Mr President the dismissal from office of Mr Vlad Alexandrescu as minister of culture and his replacement with Mrs Corina Suteu. I will not dwell on this dismissal, but the way in which a minister operates and reacts in a crisis, such as the crisis at the Bucharest National Opera, is decisive to his or her capability of and credibility to manage his or her portfolio and solve similar consequent situations in a professional field such as culture. Nevertheless, I am regretting having reached this point, and particularly the way in which Mr Alexandrescu understood to end his tenure. Yet, I want to extend my thanks to him for his good initiatives in this area while in office, and I also want to confirm interest in and determination to continue the reform of the area by appointing Mrs Suteu, whom I have known for a long time and who has worked on the reform programme of the Culture Ministry," Ciolos says in a Facebook post.
He adds that he will ask the new culture minister "to rapidly think of a legislative framework allowing some organisations such as the National Opera to combine stock performances with new ones and open up to international collaborations while providing a balanced social and financial status to Romanian values."
Ciolos says the Government will continue public fundraising initiatives for Brancusi's sculpture ''Wisdom of the Earth'' while intending to promote after this year's locals elections "viable development alternatives" for the inhabitants of the Rosia Montana site, the place of a controversial gold mining project.
"Under a decision I promoted late last year, Rosia Montana became a category A UNESCO heritage site and that is how it stays. As I told Mr Alexandrescu, we have to exceed this protection and provide viable development alternatives to the locals. Immediately after the local elections, we intend to come up with ideas related to that. On the other hand, reforms of the national heritage and filmmaking industry will be continued," says Ciolos.
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Corina Suteu, state secretary in the Ministry of Culture since January 2016, has graduated from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest in 1983 in Romanian and English studies; she has a MSci degree in cultural management obtained in Dijon, France in 1991.
She taught Romanian and English at the Agro-Industrial Secondary School of Fagaras from 1983 to 1987.
She wrote for the 'Teatrul' magazine from 1987 to 1989.
Manager of the Theatre Union of Romania from 1991 to 1993 and of Theatrum Mundi (now Metropolis) from 1993 to 1995.
She was director of the European cultural management Master's programme in Dijon from 1995 to 2001; president of the Forum of European cultural networks from 1995 to 2002; manager of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York from 2006 to 2012.
She worked as a consultant for various programmes of the European Union, the Council of Europe, UNESCO, European cultural networks and various culture and research international organizations; as an expert for several programmes of the Council of Europe from 1995 to 2005; contributor as an expert to a study of European artists' mobility (1998-2005); coordinating expert for continuing training of professionals within the PHARE programme 'Cultural Dimension of Democracy'; national expert for the study 'The State of Cultural Cooperation in Europe' commissioned by the European Commission in 2003.
She founded and headed the ECUMEST Cultural Association (1998-2005), specialized in cultural policies, advocating the institutional emancipation of culture in Romania and in Central and Eastern Europe; she was a member of the steering committee of the Informal European Theatre Meeting (1992-1998).
Alongside film critic Mihai Chirilov, Suteu founded in 2012 the Romanian Film Initiative, organiser of the Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema Festival.
She is an author of many specialty reports and studies on cultural polices; co-editor alongside Hanneloes Weeda and Cas Smithuijsen of the book 'Arts Politics and Change. Participative Cultural Policy-making in South East Europe' (Amsterdam, 2005). Author of 'Another Brick in the Wall, a Critical Overview of Cultural Management in Europe.' (Amsterdam, 2006).