Marcel Ciolacu

Ion Marcel Ciolacu (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon marˈtʃel tʃjoˈlaku]; born 28 November 1967) is a Romanian politician who served as the prime minister of Romania from 2023 to 2025. Ciolacu entered national politics in 2012, when he was first elected for a deputy seat in the Parliament of Romania. In 2015, he was elected Social Democratic Party (PSD) president for Buzău County. Ciolacu came into national prominence in 2018, when he became the Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Mihai Tudose.

Following the overwhelming defeat of new PSD leader Viorica Dăncilă in the 2019 Romanian presidential election, on 26 November 2019, Ciolacu was named leader of the party, firstly ad-interim, until he was confirmed to hold the position by the party congress the next year on 22 August 2020 with an overwhelming 1310–91 margin against his opponent. Ciolacu led the party to victory in the 2020 Romanian legislative election but was not able to form a majority coalition in the new legislative. Other parties opposed to the PSD formed a new coalition on 23 December with the new government, thus pushing Ciolacu's PSD into opposition. However, in 2021, following the political crisis that led to the collapse of the Cîțu Cabinet, he managed to bring the PSD back to the government, forming a cabinet with its former rival, the National Liberal Party, thus forming the National Coalition for Romania.

His premiership was described by opposition figures as illiberal, or authoritarian, being accused of limiting press freedom. He was also accused of economic mismanagement; under Ciolacu, Romania reached the highest external debt, while inflation reached 7.3%, the highest in the European Union (where the average was 3.1%), and the second-highest in all of Europe, only behind Turkey (as of February 2024). In the 2024 The Economist Democracy Index, Romania was downgraded from flawed democracy to a hybrid regime, becoming the only EU country to be classified as such.

On 25 November 2024, following his defeat in the first round of that year's presidential election, Ciolacu announced his resignation as leader of the Social Democratic Party but he ultimately did not resign as he was given a vote of confidence to maintain party leadership. Following the 2024 Romanian parliamentary election on 1 December, he was nominated to form the new government and remain in office as Prime Minister.

Marcel Ciolacu was born in the city of Buzău, Romania as the son of Ion Ciolacu, a career military pilot in the Romanian Air Force, native to Oltenia, southern Romania. His mother's family is native to Tecuci, Western Moldavia, north-eastern Romania.

In 1995 he obtained a law degree from the Ecological University of Bucharest, which was authorised in May 1995. In 2008 he attended a program in Security and National Defence at the National College of Defence in Bucharest, a controversial university, regarded by some Romanian publications as a diploma mill.^{[citation needed]}

In 2012 he completed a master's programme in the Management of the Public Sector at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration.

Marcel Ciolacu participated in the 1989 Romanian Revolution in Buzău, but a recent investigation by independent news organisation Recorder has put these claims under scrutiny, having revealed a series of inconsistencies in his account and the lack of supporting evidence for his participation in the 1989 Romanian Revolution. He became a member of the National Salvation Front in 1990. During the early nineties, Ciolacu climbed the steps in local politics, and by 1996, had become the second-in-command of the Youth Organisation of the party. Senator Ion Vasile became the godfather of his child. He remained little known, however, until the mid-2000s. In 2005, he was for several months the interim prefect of Buzau, after which he became, in turn, director of Urbis Serv and deputy mayor of Buzau (2008–2012), while Constantin Boșcodeală was mayor of Buzau (1996–2016). Boșcodeală was later convicted in 2015 for abuse of office during the period 2002–2008, by diverting public funds to a football team and other private companies of which he was a shareholder.