MARIA MAGDALENA GRIGORE
Maria Magdalena GRIGORE was appointed Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 19, 2018 and since September 2019 she holds the position of Special Representative for Combatting Terrorism, Violent Extremism and Radicalization within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania.
As Secretary of State she had the responsibility for Inter-institutional Relations, Development and Humanitarian Policies. In this capacity, she ensured policy coherence across a broad spectrum of development and humanitarian issues in all international fora being they within the United Nations, OECD or European Union. During the Romanian Presidency of the Council of European Union, she was directly in charge with the negotiations of external financial instruments, ACP negotiations, Africa and LDCs, joint EU programming, EU-Africa investment plan, European Investment Plan, disruptive technologies and development, gender dimension and youth impact an today’s and tomorrow societies. Agenda 2030 and the implementation of the SDGs remain the global underlying strategy. She receives special assignments, at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on sensitive foreign policy topics, with impact on development and humanitarian dimensions. In this context, she was taking care of the modalities to translate into practice the complex nexus humanitarian-development-peace and security. Her function of Secretary of State in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is backstopped by solid technical knowledge gained in her previous assignments and the experience of a practitioner in those areas.
Previously, between January 2017 and July 2018 and January 2015 till November 2016 she served as State Secretary at the Ministry of Transport.
At the Ministry of Transport among the main responsibilities were the coordination of the Management Authorities in the railway, aviation and naval areas by setting out and monitoring the specific indicators and performance criteria to each entity, as well as monitoring the investment projects assigned through Large Infrastructure Operational Program (POIM) 2014-2020. As State Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Maria Magdalena Grigore was also the Coordinator of European Affairs and International Relations and the representative of the Ministry in the Coordinating Committee of the National European Affairs Management System (CCAE) set up to prepare the Presidency of Romania at the Council of the European Union in 2019. As State Secretary, she represented Romania at High-Level events of major International Organizations. Among these are within UN: the UNECE — ITC, ESCAP, Steering Committees of the North/South Trans European Road Project (TEM) and the Trans-European Rail (TER), as well as OECD — ITF. At the same time, she represented Romania to the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Rail Transport (OTIF), the Organisation for the Cooperation of Railways (OCCF), DANUBE-FAB, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, Transport, Communication and Energy Ministerial Councils (TTE). Mrs. Grigore presided, as well, Romanian Joint Intergovernmental Committees Transport Groups with various countries from European, Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the Community of Independent States and the Caucasus.
Since February 2018, Maria Magdalena GRIGORE is the Vice-President of the Bureau of the Inland Transport Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ITC UN-ECE) and since July 2012, she holds the position of Romania’s National Secretary for TRACECA. As the Romanian National Secretary of TRACECA she is responsible to provide the necessary conditions for the implementation of the provisions for the Europe-Caucasus-Asia Corridor Multilateral Agreement and the Technical annexes in order to stimulate the cooperation among the 13 Member States (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan), for a better development and integration of transport and trade in the region.
She graduated the Faculty of International Economic Relations, within the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and later on she has deepen her knowledge with two Master Degrees in the field of global diplomacy, intelligence and good governance.
