Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta says he will not resign over accusations of plagiarism against him.
The British science magazine "Nature" and German daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" have reported they had seen documents proving that more than half of Ponta's thesis on the International Criminal Court for his 2003 Ph.D. consisted of duplicated text from Romanian and foreign authors.
Over the past year, plagiarism charges have forced several European politicians to step down in recent months, including Hungary's president, a German defense minister, and even Ponta's nomination as Romanian education minister.
Ponta, who leads ex-communist Social Democratic Party (PSD), which came to power in April after bringing down President Traian Basescu's center-right party in a no-confidence vote, on June 19 accused Basescu of orchestrating the plagiarism accusations.
The British science magazine "Nature" and German daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" have reported they had seen documents proving that more than half of Ponta's thesis on the International Criminal Court for his 2003 Ph.D. consisted of duplicated text from Romanian and foreign authors.
Over the past year, plagiarism charges have forced several European politicians to step down in recent months, including Hungary's president, a German defense minister, and even Ponta's nomination as Romanian education minister.
Ponta, who leads ex-communist Social Democratic Party (PSD), which came to power in April after bringing down President Traian Basescu's center-right party in a no-confidence vote, on June 19 accused Basescu of orchestrating the plagiarism accusations.