Mihnea Motoc

Mihnea Ioan Motoc is a Romanian diplomat who served as Minister of Defence of Romania between November 2015 and January 2017, in the Cioloș Cabinet. Before this appointment, he was the country's ambassador to the European Union between 2008 and 2015, and briefly the country's ambassador to the United Kingdom. He is the Principal Adviser in the European Commission's Inspire, Debate, Engage and Accelerate Action (IDEA) department.

Career Motoc has been a Romanian diplomat since the early 1990s, when he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania. For most of the 1990s Motoc spent time in various Romanian government posts. He joined the United Nations in 2003, where he spent five years working as the Permanent Representative of Romania. He held this position until becoming Ambassador of Romania to London for a few months in 2015. In November 2015, he was appointed Minister of Defence in the Cioloș Cabinet and held the position until January 2017.

In June 2026, he was again proposed as Minister of Defence in a government to be led by Eugen Tomac.

Education Motoc studied law at the University of Bucharest from 1984 until 1989. Following this he went on to achieve a Certificate of post-graduate studies in Private International Law from the University of Nice in 1991 and a master's degree in Public International and Comparative Law from George Washington University a year later.