Dumitru Gheorghe Mircea Coșea (born June 9, 1942) is a Romanian politician, economist, diplomat, essayist, journalist and professor. A former member of the Party of Social Democracy (PDSR) until June 1997, he joined Teodor Meleșcanu and Iosif Boda in creating the short-lived Alliance for Romania (Alianța pentru România, ApR) party, which merged into the National Liberal Party (PNL) in 2002. In 1999, Coșea was among the members of Varujan Vosganian's grouping, the Union of Right-wing Forces (Uniunea Forțelor de Dreapta, UFD), which also joined the PNL. Coșea has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Constanța County in 1996-2000 (with the PDSR group in 1996-1997, as an independent in 1997-2000) and for Olt County, with the Justice and Truth alliance group, from 2004. With the accession of Romania to the European Union on January 1, 2007, became a Member of the European Parliament with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. In March 2007, he resigned from the PNL and, as an independent MEP, joined the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) group inside the European Parliament. He is a professor at the Faculty of General Economics, part of the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE), and at the Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University (UCDC), being head of the UCDC's Department of European Integration. He is also a regular contributor to Săptămâna Financiară. Coșea is married, and has fathered a daughter (born in 1970). Biography Born in Ploiești, Coșea graduated from the ASE in 1965, and furthered his studies at the Istituto di Studi per lo Sviluppo Economico in Italy, and later took his Ph.D. Between 1967 and the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he was a simple member of the Romanian Communist Party. After winning a competition for the office, he represented Communist Romania at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva between 1973 and 1980. According to his own testimony, he was involved in obtaining relief funds for the town of Zimnicea, largely destroyed by the severe 1977 earthquake. In 1994, he authored a textbooks on Economics for high school students. As a deputy, Coșea sat on the Committees for Economic Policy, Reform and Privatization (1996-2000) for Budget, Finance and Banks, and for Labor and Social Protection (both in 2004-2005); in 2005, he was appointed to the Committee for European Integration. Between 1993 and 1997, he was a Minister of State in the Nicolae Văcăroiu PDSR cabinet, and