Florin Buhuceanu is a long-standing activist for the LGBTQ+ community and the first openly gay politician to run for parliament in Romania, a largely conservative, Christian Orthodox country where the LGBTQ+ community still faces discrimination.
It is precisely because of this discrimination that Buhuceanu decided to go into politics and run for office.
In 2019, Buhuceanu and his partner, along with 20 other couples took Romania to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for refusing to formally recognize their relationships.
After ruling in May 2023 that Romania was violating the European Convention on Human Rights by not recognizing such relationships, the ECHR stressed that Romania is required to recognize and protect same-sex unions. So far, however, nothing has changed.