Vasilica Viorica Dăncilă (born 16 December 1963)[2] is a Romanian politician, a leader of the Social Democratic Party, and the Prime Minister of Romania since 29 January 2018.[3] She is the first woman in Romanian history to hold the office of Prime Minister. In 2014, she was elected as a member in the European Parliament for a second term from the PSD. Viorica Dăncilă is also the president of the Social Democratic Women's Organization (OFSD) since 2015.
Viorica Dăncilă became a member of the Social Democratic Party in 1996, as part of the PSD organization of Teleorman County.[4] Over the years she has held several positions in both PSD and the local administration. Viorica Dăncilă was a local council and a county councilor until 2009, when she was elected MEP for her first term. Also, Viorica Dăncilă occupied several leadership positions in the party, as president of the local organization, vice president of PSD Teleorman and president of OFSD Teleorman.
Before entering politics she was an engineer with Petrom SA and prior to that a teacher at Videle Industrial High School.
Dăncilă's plans for a new cabinet were approved on 26 January 2018.
In the European Parliament
In 2009, Viorica Dăncilă was elected on the lists of the Social Democratic Party for her first term as a member of the European Parliament. She has been active in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group.[6] During the 5 year term, she did not draft any report as a rapporteur (primary legislator).
In 2014, Viorica Dăncilă was elected for another term as MEP on the Social Democratic Party's lists. She is also the leader of the Romanian Social Democrat delegation in the EP. Viorica Dăncilă is a vice chair of the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.[7] She is also a full member of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality[8] and a substitute member of the Committee on Regional Development.
In 2015, she was shortlisted for the MEP Awards, in the Agriculture category.[9] Two years later, in 2017, she was again nominated, in two separate categories: Women's Rights & Gender Equality and Research & Innovation.
In February 2018, Dăncilă was in center of a discrimination scandal. She catalogued as "autistic" the MEPs who "misinform the EU" with regard to changes to the justice laws.[18] Soon after, the Association of Parents of Children with Autism claimed that the use of the term "autistic" with a profoundly negative meaning in a political dispute is an offense to those with this condition.[19] Moreover, the National Council for Combating Discrimination began the hearing procedures of Viorica Dăncilă for her perceived discriminatory comments.[20] She later apologized for the statement and said that through the comparison she did not want to insult people with autism spectrum disorders.[21]
She was also criticized for showing a lack of knowledge for proper grammar in Romanian,[22][23] a lack of verbal fluidity,[24] poor knowledge of terms[25] and subjects related to her tasks.[26] Mircea Dumitru (ro), rector of the University of Bucharest and former Minister of Education, characterized her language as "hard to understand" and "full of syntactic construction errors and logical inconsistencies."[27] After repeatedly avoiding meetings and phone conversations on domestic and international issues with President Klaus Iohannis, the latter asked her to resign, arguing that she "does not cope with the position of prime minister and turns the Government into a vulnerability of Romania."[28] Moreover, Iohannis accused Dăncilă of obeying "orders from the party" and announced that he withdrew his confidence in her.[29]
In July 2018, Dăncilă caused outrage in Montenegro when, during a meeting with Prime Minister Duško Marković, confused the capital of the country, Podgorica, with Pristina, the capital of Kosovo (which is not recognized as an independent nation by Romania
