Ovidiu Victor Ganţ (b. August 18, 1966) is a Romanian politician and former Member of the European Parliament. A member of the Chamber of Deputies since 2004, he was the sole representative in the European Parliament of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (DFDR), part of the European People's Party–European Democrats, and became an MEP on January 1, 2007, with the accession of Romania to the European Union.

Biography

Born to an ethnic German (Banat Swabian) family in Deta, Timiş County, Ganţ graduated in Mathematics from the West University of Timişoara, and subsequently taught at the Coriolan Brediceanu High School in Lugoj (1989-1992) and the Nikolaus Lenau High School in Timişoara (1992-2001). In 1995, he received the University of Chicago's Outstanding Teacher Award. Between 1992 and 1995, he was an outside collaborator of both the West University and the Timişoara Polytechnic University, and was a referent for the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2003-2004.

A Vice President of the DFDR's Banat section, Ganţ was appointed to the Romanian government's Department for Inter-Ethnic Relations under Premier Adrian Năstase, and served until 2004. He became a member of the Chamber for Sibiu County after the 2004 election, and served on its Committee for Education, Science, Youth and Sport, as well as on the Parliamentary Committees for European Integration and European Affairs.

References

External links

• European Parliament profile
• European Parliament official photo