Romania's prime minister-designate Dacian Ciolos named a technocrat government on Sunday, tapping European Union experts as well as private sector leaders to steer the country until elections next year. Ciolos, 46, was tasked on Tuesday by President Klaus Iohannis with forming a new government after ex-premier Victor Ponta stepped down following mass anti-government protests sparked by a night-club fire that killed 55 people in Bucharest.
"My goal was to name competent and experienced people, Romanians who work in European Union administration or in civil society," said Ciolos, a former EU agriculture commissioner.
Ex-International Monetary Fund expert and European Commission analyst Anca Paliu-Dragu has been named to head the finance ministry, a key post with the government's first order of business being to prepare a 2016 budget. Incoming justice minister Cristina Guseth worked for the European Commission in Bucharest and since 1998 has headed the Romanian branch of pro-democracy group Freedom House.
Romania's former ambassador the EU, Mihnea Motoc, was named minister of defence, while an advisor to the Romanian delegation to Brussels, Achim Irimescu, was given the post of agriculture minister. The Ministry of European Funds will be headed by an official from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, Aura Raducu, while career diplomat Lazar Comanescu, a former foreign minister, has been tapped to for foreign affairs. Several members of the incoming government, including heads of economy and communications, are from the private and non-profit sectors.
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