Romania’s former technocrat PM launches new political party

Romania’s former technocrat prime minister Dacian Ciolos announced yesterday that a new political party will emerge from his Romania 100 platform.

“We will get politically involved to change things,” Ciolos said in a press conference.

“We will be ready to come up with a political offer in the next elections, no matter when they are,” he added.

He also said that his new party will not act against those who share the same principles and values.

Dacian Ciolos, a former European Commissioner for agriculture, was Romania’s prime minister from December 2015 until December 2016. Despite his popularity among the liberal voters, Ciolos decided not to join any political party or run in the 2016 parliamentary elections, as he had promised he wouldn’t do this before starting his PM mandate.

However, he launched a civic platform called Romania 100 stating a set of principles for governing Romania and invited the political parties that shared those principles to join him. The National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Save Romania Union (USR) stated they would support Ciolos for a new mandate as PM should they win the elections, but the Social Democratic Party (PSD) crushed them in the elections, with a series of populist promises, and formed the new Government.

Ciolos and some of his cabinet’s members have continued to work on developing good governing practices through the Romania 100 platform. More recently, Ciolos joined the protests against PSD’s proposed changes to the justice laws.

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