Dan Voiculescu (; born September 25, 1946) is a doctor of economics, university professor, and Romanian politician, former businessman. He is the founding president of the Romanian Humanist Party (PUR), which later became the Conservative Party (subsequently absorbed by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Party) and has since become the Social-Liberal Humanist Party. Dan Voiculescu was elected senator for Bucharest in three legislatures.
On February 5, 2011, Dan Voiculescu initiated the creation of the Social-Liberal Union (USL), a parliamentary and pre-electoral political alliance. The “Humanists” played a significant role in shaping the USL that year. In 2012, the alliance won the parliamentary elections by a landslide, securing over 66% of the vote and becoming the most powerful political coalition Romania had seen since 1990.
In August 2014, Voiculescu was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the case involving the privatization of the Food Research Institute (ICA). He was conditionally released in July 2017 after serving two years and eleven months.
In August 2024, the Bucharest Court of Appeal definitively upheld the suspension of both the additional penalties and the order to recover damages in the ICA case. The decision followed a final ruling by the Bucharest Tribunal, which found that the DNA expert who had calculated the amount of damages had committed perjury.
Dan Voiculescu was one of the richest men in Romania, with a fortune estimated at 1.5–1.6 billion euros, according to Top 300 Richest Romanian People launched by the Capital magazine in October 2009. The Intact Media Group, founded by Dan Voiculescu, includes several major television stations (most notably Antena 1 and Antena 3), radio stations, as well as top newspapers and magazines (most notably Jurnalul Naţional and Gazeta Sporturilor). According to Top 300 issued by Capital, developing televisions and launching GSP TV and Radio station ZU, as well as strengthening the print media, have been among the main directions that have marked the group's businesses in 2008.
Early life For his secondary studies, he went to the Emil Racoviţă High School. "Preşedinte Fondator - Dan Voiculescu" , biography at Dan Voiculescu Humanist Foundation Starting in 1969, he studied at the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE) in Bucharest, obtaining a B.A. in 1974, and a Ph.D. in 1977. In 1991, he obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the unaccredited Pacific Western University (Hawaii), in Honolulu, Hawaii, and became a professor at ASE.
According to the autobiography published on the official website, he was born in a modest family, his father being a plumber and his mother a housewife. He grew up in the Bucharest neighborhood of Bariera Vergului, near the 23 August skating rink, where he practiced ice hockey. In 1969 he fulfilled the military service in a military unit in Focsani, obtaining the rank of reserve intendancy lieutenant.
Professional and Political activities
Pre-Revolutionary Romania
Vitrocim (1970-1982) After graduating from the Faculty of Foreign Trade at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Dan Voiculescu was assigned to the Tehnoforest enterprise. From there, he was transferred to a newly formed foreign trade enterprise, ICE Vitrocim, where he worked as an economist and subsequently as a department head between 1970 and 1982.
Crescent (1982-1992) Between 1982 and 1992, he was active within the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania and served as the director of the Romanian representation of Crescent Commercial & Maritime Ltd., a company owned by Fouad Sanbar, a Greek citizen. Following Fouad Sanbar's death, Voiculescu inherited the Crescent company.
Post-Revolutionary Romania In 1991, Voiculescu founded the Humanist Party of Romania, which changed its name to the Conservative Party (PC) in May 2005. Voiculescu held the executive presidency of the political formation between 1991 and 2005, a period during which the party became an ally of the Social Democratic Party under the Adrian Năstase government. In 2008, despite being officially in the opposition, the PSD achieved a lower score than the PDL, marking a weaker performance than in the 2004 elections. Consequently, the PSD lost approximately 0.9 million voters: dropping from 3.2 million votes in 2004 (when it ran alongside Dan Voiculescu's PUR) to 2.35 million votes. Under Voiculescu's leadership, the party also markedly changed its doctrine to embrace conservative values in line with the views of the European People's Party in the European Parliament."EPP-ED-Bureau Meeting in Bucharest: 'Romania must do its job'", June 2, 2005. The PC, however, did not join the European People's Party.
The PC, then called the PUR, supported the Social Democratic Party (PSD)-led government from 2000 to 2004, and ran in coalition with the PSD in the 2004 parliamentary and presidential elections. The PC was also part of the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu from December 2004 until the party withdrew in 2006. According to Freedom House, one reason the government of Popescu-Tăriceanu included the small PC, which received support from only 2 percent of the population, was due to the strength of Voiculescu family's Antenna 1 television station. PC ran in a coalition with PSD in the 2008 legislative elections, and Voiculescu was elected senator in a Bucharest district.
As member of the Romanian Senate, Voiculescu has been strong in his opposition to Romanian President Traian Băsescu, who he states has exceeded constitutional boundaries and abused power. In March, 2007, he established a special commission within the Parliament to investigate Băsescu's actions as president and sponsored the legislation in the Parliament that led to a national referendum over whether Băsescu should remain in office. Voiculescu was also strongly opposed to former Minister of Justice Monica Macovei.
In April 2007, the Parliamentary Committee led by Senator Dan Voiculescu managed, for the first time in the post-revolutionary Romania, the suspension of an acting president. The report drawn up by the "Voiculescu Committee" was adopted in the Romanian Parliament, with 322 votes "for" and 108 "against"; President Traian Băsescu was thus suspended from his function.
Voiculescu opposed a draft law proposed by Justice Minister Monica Macovei and supported by the European Commission to set up a special agency for checking assets declarations for MPs and other senior officials. He subsequently supported a version characterized as "watered down" by the international media.
In September 2007, Dan Voiculescu resigned from his senator function as a form of protest against the blocking in the Romanian Parliament, of various important social laws. They were about promoting his projects on extending the contracts of tenants in the nationalized houses, reducing VAT on food, solidarity fund for pensioners and non-taxation of reinvested profits, legislation designed to bring more money to pensioners with low incomes, to lower prices on basic food or assist companies to reinvest their profits.
In November 2008, by occasion of the first elections held in the plurality system, Dan Voiculescu returned to the Romanian Parliament, obtaining 21,708 votes in the 8th college in Bucharest, and in December 2008 he was elected vice-president of the Senate of Romania, with 83 votes for and 2 against.
Voiculescu's Law Voiculescu initiated a bill, now named after him, that allows tenants of buildings that were nationalized during communism to stay in them, while the former owners receive only financial compensation. After a long legislative and constitutional battle, president Băsescu signed it into law in 2009, even though he and his party opposed it. Emil Boc's government however did not apply it, and was sued by tenants' associations.
Secret police involvement CNSAS revealed that Voiculescu acted as an informer for the Securitate by the names of "Felix" and "Mircea". Voiculescu denies, however, having been an official collaborator (with a signed agreement) or an officer of the Securitate and is appealing the CNSAS' ruling to that effect. He has said he will resign from the Senate if the verdict is not overturned on appeal. He blamed the initial findings against him on Băsescu, who, according to Voiculescu, launched a campaign to undermine him.Ana Şerban, "Voiculescu's appeal against CNSAS decision delayed in Court" , Nine O'Clock, March 21, 2007.
According to the CNSAS (National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives), Voiculescu was first recruited by the Securitate in 1970 under the code name "Mircea," with the mission of collecting information about foreign citizens by acting as a German-language translator for them; because the results were unsatisfactory, this collaboration allegedly ended the following year. In 1973, he was allegedly given the code name "Felix," and over a two-year period, he reportedly provided a series of informative notes regarding foreign citizens with whom he had contact. In 1975, Voiculescu became a member of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), and the Securitate allegedly dropped "Felix" as an informant, though he continued to be used on an occasional basis. This was the case with a 1977 note, which proved important for the CNSAS in formulating the accusation of political policing.
In 2003, 2004, and 2005, the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) issued Decision No. 126 of November 11, 2003, Certificate No. 371 of October 5, 2004, and Decision No. 101 of May 19, 2005, stating that there were no indications at that time that Dan Voiculescu had been an agent or collaborator of the Securitate, or that he had engaged in political policing. On June 5, 2006, the Political Bureau of the Conservative Party nominated Dan Voiculescu for the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the Government of Romania. Until that date, the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) had repeatedly refused to hand over a large number of files requested by the CNSAS, which had previously been classified. At the express request of the CNSAS, a joint SRI-CNSAS commission met to discuss the status of these files—including some containing information about the relationship between Voiculescu and the Securitate—in the context of a legal expansion of the scope of documents analyzable by the CNSAS. Through a decision made in June 2006, the CNSAS confirmed Dan Voiculescu's collaboration with the Securitate as political police under the conspiratorial name "Felix". Dan Voiculescu appealed the decision, but his appeal was rejected, receiving only 3 favorable votes. The verdict was also confirmed in court, as required by law, with the Bucharest Court of Appeal rejecting the senator's challenge on February 5, 2010. The Court of Appeal justified its decision on the grounds that the informative notes violated the fundamental rights and freedoms of the monitored citizens.
Tom Gallagher wrote in a 2004 paper that it is supposed that Dan Voiculescu held the rank of General within the intelligence service before Romania's 1989 anti-communist revolution, but nothing has been proved till now. Ziua newspaper commented however that if Voiculescu was a "covert general" this fact would be extremely hard to prove; official records show that Voiculescu was a reserve army sub-lieutenant."Dan Voiculescu a fost general in serviciul secret al lui Ceauşescu" , Ziua, September 11, 2004.