A report adopted by the council Friday analyzes the types of plagiarism in Ponta’s PhD paper and includes an appendix listing the pages that copy other works without citing the source.
According to the document, the thesis copies entire text fragments from original sources or puts together different fragments from several sources without citation.
Ponta told Mediafax Friday that the decision issued by the Ethics Council of the University of Bucharest is “political”, adding that the only valid opinion is that of the National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS).
ANCS’s National Ethics Council decided Thursday that Ponta did not plagiarize his PhD thesis.
At the end of June, Romania’s National Council of Degree and Diploma Certification (CNATDCU) said Ponta plagiarized his PhD thesis, and asked the Education Ministry to withdraw his doctorate degree.
In June, German magazine Nature published an article alleging that more than half of Ponta’s PhD thesis on the International Criminal Court copies other works without citing sources. Ponta did not deny the accusations and said he may have made a mistake by not citing his sources in footnotes.
In an interview with Spanish daily El Pais, the prime minister is quoted as having said he would take responsibility and resign if his thesis is proven to have been plagiarized.