Nicolae Ciucă | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Ciucă in 2021 | |
| President of the Senate of Romania | |
| In office 13 June 2023 – 23 December 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Alina Gorghiu (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Ilie Bolojan |
| Prime Minister of Romania | |
| In office 25 November 2021 – 12 June 2023 | |
| President | Klaus Iohannis |
| Deputy | Hunor Kelemen Sorin Grindeanu |
| Preceded by | Florin Cîțu |
| Succeeded by | Cătălin Predoiu (acting)Marcel Ciolacu |
| Acting 7 December 2020 – 23 December 2020 | |
| President | Klaus Iohannis |
| Deputy | Raluca Turcan |
| Preceded by | Ludovic Orban |
| Succeeded by | Florin Cîțu |
| Minister of National Defence | |
| In office 4 November 2019 – 25 November 2021 | |
| Prime Minister | Ludovic Orban Himself Florin Cîțu |
| Preceded by | Gabriel-Beniamin Leș [ro] |
| Succeeded by | Vasile Dîncu |
| President of theNational Liberal Party | |
| In office 10 April 2022 – 25 November 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Gheorghe Flutur (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Ilie Bolojan |
| Senator of Romania | |
| In office 21 December 2020 – 5 February 2025 | |
| Constituency | Dolj County |
| Chief of the Romanian General Staff | |
| In office 1 January 2015 – 28 October 2019 | |
| President | Klaus Iohannis |
| Preceded by | Ștefan Dănilă [ro] |
| Succeeded by | Daniel Petrescu |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1967-02-07)7 February 1967 (age 58) |
| Political party | National Liberal Party (2020–present) |
| Other political affiliations | Romanian Communist Party (1986—1989)[1] |
| Spouse | Cristina Maria Ciucă |
| Children | 1 |
| Awards |
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| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Romanian Land Forces |
| Years of service | 1988–2019 |
| Rank | General |
| Commands | |
| Battles/wars | |
Nicolae Ionel Ciucă (Romanian:[nikoˈla.ejoˈnelˈtʃjukə]; born 22 September 1967) is a former Romanian politician and retired general of theRomanian Land Forces. Ideologically aconservative,[2][3][4] he served asPrime Minister of Romania between 25 November 2021 and 12 June 2023 after receiving widespread parliamentary support on behalf of his own party, theNational Liberal Party (PNL) along with theSocial Democratic Party (PSD) and theDemocratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ). Since 10 April 2022, he has also been serving as the president of theNational Liberal Party (PNL). On 12 June 2023, he resigned as prime minister, as part of a deal with his coalition partner, the PSD, to switch places with Marcel Ciolacu, and wastemporarily replaced byCătălin Predoiu.[5]
Ciucă has participated in the wars inAfghanistan andIraq. He was theChief of the Romanian General Staff from 2015 to 2019, and from 2019 to 2021 was theMinister of Defence. He briefly led as caretaker theRomanian government between 7 and 23 December 2020, in the aftermath of former prime ministerLudovic Orban's resignation. On 21 October 2021, he was appointed by PresidentKlaus Iohannis to forma new government following the dissolution of theCîțu Cabinet and the rejection ofDacian Cioloș as prime minister but subsequently gave up his mandate. Iohannis nominated him again on 22 November 2021.
Nicolae Ciucă was born inPlenița, a commune inDolj County, on 7 February 1967. He graduated from the Tudor Vladimirescu Military Lyceum inCraiova in 1985 and from theNicolae Bălcescu Land Forces Academy inSibiu in 1988.[6]
During his military career, he participated inmissions inAfghanistan,Bosnia and Herzegovina, andIraq. From 2001 to 2004, he was commander of the26th Infantry Battalion (also known as the Red Scorpions), with which he participated inOperation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan andOperation Ancient Babylon in Iraq. He was promoted to the rank of General on 25 October 2010.[6][7]
In 2015, he replacedȘtefan Dănilă [ro] asChief of the Romanian General Staff.[8] His 4-year term under this office was extended for another year by theRomanian PresidentKlaus Iohannis in 2018.[6][8] This caused a conflict between Iohannis, the Prime MinisterViorica Dăncilă, and the thenMinister of Defense,Gabriel-Beniamin Leș [ro], who intended to change office.[8]
On 28 October 2024, Ciucă admitted that he joined theRomanian Communist Party in 1986, but claimed that every military officer had to do that and that he wasn't a communist.[1]
TheNational Liberal Party (PNL) proposed Ciucă as Minister of Defense of theFirst Orban Cabinet.[7][6] He was transferred as areserve on 28 October 2019,[8] being succeeded as Chief of the Romanian General Staff by Daniel Petrescu.[9] He became the Minister of Defense of Romania on 4 November 2019.[10] In October 2020, he joined the National Liberal Party (PNL) to run as asenator for theSenate of Romania in that year'slegislative elections[11] and was subsequently elected as well.[12]
On 7 December 2020, following the resignation of Prime MinisterLudovic Orban, he was named acting prime minister by Iohannis. He led as caretaker the government until a new coalition government was formed underFlorin Cîțu on 23 December as a consequence of the result of the2020 Romanian legislative election.[13][14]
However, after theCîțu Cabinet was dissolved through amotion of no confidence on 5 October 2021,[15] Iohannis nominated Ciucă as Prime Minister-designate on 21 October 2021.[16] While theDemocratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ) quickly agreed to renew a minority government with the PNL, theSocial Democratic Party (PSD) offered to support him temporarily during theCOVID-19 pandemic in exchange for agreeing to 10 measures.[17] He presented his government on 29 October.[18] Having failed to win the support of the PSD or theSave Romania Union (USR), he gave up forming a government on 1 November.[19][20] He was nominated again as Prime Minister-designate on 22 November 2021[21] and was confirmed by the parliament on 25 November after receiving 318 votes in favor.[22] He was sworn in the office hours later.[23]
AfterFlorin Cîțu resigned as president of the National Liberal Party (PNL) on 2 April 2022, followed by an 8-day ad interim leadership ofGheorghe Flutur, Ciucă was elected as the new party leader. He is the third consecutive politician since 2019 to serve as both prime minister and president of the PNL at one point, the first two beingOrban and Cîțu.[24]
On 26 August 2022, Ciucă signed the first financing contracts of the so-called Anghel Saligny investment program, a foundation whose purpose is to develop settlements for Romanian civilians, formally created as a result of the2021 Romanian political crisis.[25] Since the investment of the Ciucă-ledCNR cabinet, Romania has experienced a shift towardsauthoritarianism andilliberalism.[26][27][28][29]
In March 2023, Ciucă introduced anartificial intelligence assistant, an "honorary advisor" known as ION, which aims to scan social networks to inform the government of the Romanian people's wishes and opinions.[30] Following the introduction, Nicu Sebe, the coordinator of the research team behind ION, revealed that the event was staged with the AI being unable to generate responses;[31] instead, there was a human operator responsible for selecting pre-prepared responses to anticipated questions.[32] Besides this, it was revealed that out of the 500,000 messages that ION got, only the positive ones were published, with the rest being filtered out.[33]
On 12 June 2023, according to the protocol of the CNR, Ciucă resigned.[34] He was replaced as prime minister byMarcel Ciolacu. He became thePresident of the Senate of Romania on 13 June 2023.[35]
Under Ciucă's premiership, Romania experienceddemocratic backsliding,[36] withThe Economist ranking it last in theEuropean Union in the world terms of democracy,[37] evenbehind Viktor Orbán's Hungary.[38]
Ciucă is the recipient of theOrdre national du Mérite of the French Republic, Commander rank,[39] and of theNational Order of Merit of Romania, Commander rank.[40] In 2019, he was awarded theOrder of the Star of Romania, Officer rank.[41] In 2020, he was awarded theLegion of Merit by U.S. AmbassadorAdrian Zuckerman.[42]
Nicolae Ciucă has been accused of plagiarizing his PhD thesis by the independent news organizationPressOne. Following a year and a half-long investigation, the organization was able to transcribe and digitalize his thesis, "The dimension of the Romanian army's engagement in multinational joint operations", finding that multiple pages of his work were copied, word for word, from other works without the texts correctly attributed to the original authors and lacking the requisite quotation marks, as required by academic norms.[43][44][45] During the investigation, journalist Emilia Șercan discovered that at least 42 out of the 138 pages in the doctorate thesis were plagiarized and that 94.2% of the plagiarized content in Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă's thesis originates from non-digitized works, which could not be detected using anti-plagirizing software. Nicolae Ciucă denied the accusations, stating they "cannot be scientifically proven."[46]
Ciucă is married and has a child.[6]
Ciucă opposessame-sex marriage as well ascivil unions.[47]
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief of the Romanian General Staff 2015–2019 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Minister of National Defence 2019–2021 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of Romania Acting 2020 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of Romania 2021–2023 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Senate of Romania 2023–2024 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of theNational Liberal Party 2022–2024 | Succeeded by |
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Ciucă Cabinet (2021–2023) | ||
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| Prime Minister | .jpg) | |
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