Radu Vasile

Radu Vasile (; 10 October 1942 – 3 July 2013) was a Romanian politician, historian, academic/professor, and poet. Originally a member of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (PNȚ-CD), Vasile served as the Prime Minister of Romania between 17 April 1998 and 13 December 1999, and was notably confronted with the last Mineriad (more specifically the February 1999 Mineriad). Subsequently, between 2000 and 2004, he was elected as a Senator on behalf the Democratic Party (PD). In addition to his political career, Vasile published poetry under the pen name Radu Mischiu. Biography Vasile was born in Sibiu in 1942, and was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. In 1967, he graduated from the Faculty of History at the University of Bucharest. For political reasons (his father having been a political prisoner, a lawyer, deceased in 1986), he was barred access to higher education immediately after graduating school. In 1971, he became a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Economic History at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies (ASE). In 1977, he obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the same institution of higher education and in 1978 he became a lecturer at this institution.