Hildegard Puwak

Hildegard Puwak (born September 16 1949, in Reşiţa) is a Romanian politician, member of the Social Democratic Party, who served as the Minister for European Integration from 2000 until October 2003 (as part of the Adrian Năstase cabinet). Puwak is of German ethnicity.

Corruption scandal

In August 2003, a corruption scandal broke out when BBC Romania reported that some companies owned by her and her family (her son and husband) received non-reimbursable funds (about 150,000 euros) allocated by the Leonardo de Vinci fund of the European Union, granted when she was the minister in charge of allocating them. The dossiers requesting these funds were sent on 19 January 2001, three weeks after Puwak became a minister.

BBC affirmed that the data they received from the EU contradicts her declaration of not having requested any investment funds while she was a minister.

Both the government members and the ruling party took Puwak's side during this scandal, the official stance of the government being that she did not broke any law and so it was the stance of the Romanian Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Office.

On 21 October 2003 she resigned, together with two other ministers in the Năstase government.

External links

*ro icon [http://www.evenimentulzilei.ro/politica/?news_id=129688 "Evenimentul Zilei" on the Puwak scandal] (in Romanian)