Remus Cernea (; born 25 June 1974) is a Romanian activist against discrimination based on faith and religion, an advocate of the separation of church and state and the founder of the Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience Association. From 2012 to 2016, he served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He was also president of the Green Party (PV).
He ran in the 2009 Romanian presidential election, and was a candidate for Green Party (PV), gaining over 60,000 votes, or a share of 0.62% of the votes. In October 2010, he left the Green Party over ideological differences and created the Green Movement ().
Biography
Born in Bucharest, he lived in Hunedoara for 14 years, where his father worked as a geologist, then moved back to Bucharest in 1988. In 1998, he founded the Noesis Cultural Society, an organization which edited the first Romanian e-books and multimedia encyclopedias dedicated to subjects of the Romanian culture: a CD-ROM containing 50 e-books and encyclopedias about Ion Luca Caragiale and Constantin Brâncuși. These projects earned the Noesis Society the prize for the best educational product (2002 edition) given by the Presidency of Romania.
Cernea studied Philosophy at the University of Bucharest (UB) but he did not graduate.
In 2003, he founded the Association "Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience", a secularist and humanist organization which militates for freedom of thought, separation of church and state and against discrimination based on faith and religion.
Cernea published in 2007 a book of essays and articles named "Manifest împotriva becalizării României" (A Manifest Against the Becalization of Romania), in which he argues that the "Becalization" (derived from the name of Gigi Becali, a nationalist politician who stresses his allegiance to the Romanian Orthodox Church) is threatening the values of an open society.
Views
Cernea argues that in Romania there is an "unacceptable collusion between the politicians and the Church", and that although officially there is a separation of Church and state, practically, the Romanian Orthodox Church and the state are "intimately linked". He considers himself a "freethinker", which he describes as being more encompassing than the term of "atheist", considering the term of atheist a bit too limited and wanting to retain an "area of speculation and openness".
His 2009 electoral platform was based on 10 points which he details on his blog and include: supporting conciliation and dialog within the Romanian society, supporting human rights and fight against discrimination, closer ties with Romania's neighbours, supporting green technologies, sustainable development, and green agriculture, increase in funding for education and research to 10% of the Romanian GDP, freer election system that is more fair to smaller parties, full separation of church and state and a national dialog on social issues such as legalization of prostitution, the problem of drugs and the recognition of heterosexual and homosexual civil unions.
Political activity
In 1997, as a protest toward the nationalism found in Romanian politics, Cernea joined the ethnic Hungarian party, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ), despite being ethnically Romanian.
Cernea announced his intention to run as a Green Party candidate in the January 17, 2010 by-election for the Romanian Chamber of Deputies seat (in the Sector 1 of Bucharest), vacated after the appointment of Bogdan Olteanu as deputy governor of the National Bank, however, the Bucharest Central Municipal Bureau rejected his candidature, because he is not a member of a parliamentary party, as the law requires in case of a by-election. The appeal of the decision and of the constitutionality of the law were rejected and Cernea announced he wants to dispute the law at the European Court of Human Rights.
2009 Presidential election
In August 2009, Cernea announced his intention of running for presidency as a candidate of the Green Party (PV). He and the Green Party gathered the needed 200,000 signatures and submitted them to Electoral Bureau on the last day before the beginning of the electoral campaign, October 23, 2008.
In an interview for Evenimentul Zilei, Cernea said that he wants to offer an alternative to the mainstream politics and he tries to attract the 60-70% of the voters who are disappointed by the politicians and do not want to go to the polls. Although Cernea tried to obtain a debate, no candidate from the top three parties accepted a debate involving him.