November 25 (SeeNews) - Romania's parliament gave its backing to a coalition government of the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians (UDMR) led by Nicolae Ciuca in a vote of confidence on Thursday, a live TV broadcast showed.
Out of 444 MPs present, 318 voted in favour of the new government. The coalition cabinet needed 234 votes to win the confidence vote. The parliament's sitting was broadcast live by local TV channel Digi24.
Liberals' former coalition partner USR PLUS and far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) voted against.
The government ministers will take the oath of office at a ceremony led by Romanian president Klaus Iohannis at 3pm local time. PNL holds eight ministerial portfolios, PSD has nine, while UDMR has three.
The coalition is proposing PSD MPs Adrian Caciu for the position of finance minister and Florin Spataru for economy minister. For the energy ministry, PNL is proposing Virgil Popescu, while former finance minister Dan Vilceanu is nominated for the EU funds portfolio. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis tasked prime minister-designate Ciuca with forming a coalition government for a second time on Monday.
Iohannis first gave a mandate to Ciuca to try to assemble a cabinet on October 21, after the previous prime minister-designate and chairman of USR PLUS, Dacian Ciolos, failed to win approval for his proposed minority government in parliament. On November 1, Ciuca gave up the mandate after the PNL's negotiations with PSD and USR PLUS failed.
Ciuca, 53, is a retired Romanian Land Forces general. He served as a Chief of the Romanian General Staff between 2025-2019, according to his public CV. He also led a caretaker cabinet during December 7-20 last year.
(1 euro=4.9490 euro)