Daciana Sârbu
Daciana Octavia Sârbu (born 15 January 1977) is a Romanian politician and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP). She belonged to the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and later left it in 2018, becoming an independent MEP until February 2019 and then joining PRO Romania while remaining in the S&D group. She served in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Argeș County after the 2004 elections and became an MEP on 1 January 2007, when Romania joined the European Union.
She studied law at the West University of Timișoara, earning a Master’s in Commercial Law. She also attended the National College of Defense in 2002 and worked for a law practice. Sârbu joined the PSD in 1996 and, in 2001, became an adviser for the Controlling Body of the Romanian Premiership in the Năstase government. She left this post in 2003 and became State Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Research, later heading the National Authority for Youth. She was a leader in the party’s youth and women’s wings and participated in the International Union of Socialist Youth.
In her personal life, Daciana Sârbu is the daughter of Ilie Sârbu, who served as Romania’s agriculture minister in two governments and was President of the Senate in 2008. In October 2006, she married former Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta in China; they have a daughter born in March 2008 and were married in Bucharest in June 2008. The couple divorced in 2024.
As an MEP, Sârbu sat on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and was part of the Delegation for relations with the United States. She was a substitute member on the Committee on Fisheries (PECH), Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), and Delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China (D-CN). At the start of the 2014–2019 legislature she was elected vice-chair of ENVI.
She was known for her work on environmental issues and helped author a notable 2010 European Parliament resolution calling for a general ban on cyanide mining technologies in the EU. She promoted the Danube Delta’s protection, collaborating with NGOs for funding and development there. In agriculture, she supported organic and traditional products and urged a shift to help small farms and farming resilience. In 2011 she authored a report recognizing agriculture as a strategic sector for food security.
One of her main priorities was children’s nutrition. She urged the European Commission to design a Child Health Strategy and founded an association called School for Health to help parents learn about healthy eating for their children. She was nominated for the 2015 MEP Awards for health-related work and supported patients’ rights, co-hosting in 2014 the launch of the European Cancer Patient’s Bill of Rights.
Sârbu co-chaired the MEP Interest Group on Brain, Mind and Pain and spoke on cloning of animals for farming, arguing that EU rules should reflect citizen concerns. She actively supported Romanian workers’ rights in Europe and spoke against xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2015 she wrote a letter defending immigrant doctors working in the UK after hostile remarks by Nigel Farage.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 03:33 (CET).