Nicolae Ciucă

Nicolae Ionel Ciucă (born 22 September 1967) is a former Romanian politician and retired general of the Romanian Land Forces. Ideologically a conservative, he served as Prime Minister of Romania between 25 November 2021 and 12 June 2023 after receiving widespread parliamentary support on behalf of his own party, the National Liberal Party (PNL) along with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ). From 10 April 2022 until his resignation on 25 November 2024, he has served as the president of the National 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 was temporarily replaced by Cătălin Predoiu.

Ciucă has participated in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was the Chief of the Romanian General Staff from 2015 to 2019, and from 2019 to 2021 was the Minister of Defence. He briefly led as caretaker the Romanian government between 7 and 23 December 2020, in the aftermath of former prime minister Ludovic Orban's resignation. On 21 October 2021, he was appointed by President Klaus Iohannis to form a new government following the dissolution of the Cîțu Cabinet and the rejection of Dacian Cioloș as prime minister but subsequently gave up his mandate. Iohannis nominated him again on 22 November 2021.