Costică Canacheu

Costică Canacheu (born October 15, 1958) is a Romanian politician and businessman of Aromanian descent. A participant in the 1989 Revolution, he started his political career as a member of the National Salvation Front (FSN), representing its successor, the Democratic Party (PD) to the Chamber of Deputies. Additionally, Canacheu is an activist supporting the official recognition of the Aromanians as an ethnic minority, being a founding member of the Aromanian Community Association (, ACAR) and the Aromanian Cultural Society (Societatea Culturală Aromână; Aromanian: Sutsata Culturala Armâneascâ).

Biography Born to an Aromanian Romanian family in Budești, Călărași County, Canacheu graduated from the Electro-Energetic High School in Bucharest, and worked as a technician between 1978 and 1989. Between 1993 and 2000, he was head of the Administrative Board for a Bucharest-based private enterprise, SC Neico Grup SA. and took part in the establishment of the FSN during February 1990, serving as a member of the FSN-based administration (CFSN, later CPUN) in Sector 1 of the capital, and later as a member of the FSN Directory Council.

Costică Canacheu supports the view that the 26,500 Aromanians in Romania (of whom approx. 1,300 speak Aromanian as their mother tongue) should be recognized as a separate ethnicity, and has proposed changes in the Law on Minorities. He also called on the Romanian Television to initiate special broadcasts in Aromanian at a national level. In autumn 2006, several of the issues he raised were brought to the attention of the Ministry of Culture, and a review of his proposals was due by September 2006 (in December of the same year, Canacheu announced that no resolution had been passed).