10 Facts About Hunor Kelemen

Hunor Kelemen was born on 18 October 1967 and is a Romanian politician and Hungarian-language writer.

In 2000, Hunor Kelemen was awarded the Order of the Star of Romania, Commander rank, and in 2008 Hungary's Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit.

Hunor Kelemen completed primary school in Ineu-Ciuc, and the gymnasium in his native locality, while practising ice hockey in the school's team.

In 1995 Hunor Kelemen published his first poetry volume in Hungarian language, Minuszevek, for which he was awarded the Debut Prize of the Writers' Union of Romania in 1996.

Hunor Kelemen further published a novel, A madarijesztok halala, in 1999, and a second poetry volume, A szigetlako, in 2001, both in Hungarian language.

Hunor Kelemen held this post until 2000, when he was elected in the lower house of the Romanian Parliament on the UDMR list.

On this occasion Hunor Kelemen declared his program will include a proposal for Hungarian ethnic autonomy, in a way "that would not upset the Romanian ethnics".

Hunor Kelemen performed better in the regions with important Hungarian communities, winning a majority in the counties of Harghita and Covasna, and the second place in Mures and Satu Mare.

Hunor Kelemen left government in May 2012 when the Razvan Ungureanu government lost a vote of confidence and was replaced by the one led by Victor Ponta.

Together with Hans Heinrich Hansen, Hunor Kelemen was behind the European Citizens' Initiative called Minority SafePack, which successfully collected more than 1,000,000 signatures in a year starting from 3 April 2017 in order to "improve the protection of persons belonging to national and linguistic minorities and strengthen cultural and linguistic diversity in the European Union".