Dan Nica

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Dan Nica (born July 2, 1960) is a Romanian engineer and politician from the Social Democratic Party (PSD). He has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2014.

In Romania, Nica was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1996 to 2014, representing Galați County. He held several government positions:
- Minister of Communications and Information Technology (2000–2004) in the Adrian Năstase government.
- Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Administration and Interior (February–October 2009) in the Emil Boc government. He also briefly served as interim Interior Minister in January 2009.
- Minister of Communications (May 2012–February 2014) in the Victor Ponta government.

Early life and education:
- Born in Panciu, Vrancea County. He graduated in 1985 from the Electronics and Telecommunications faculty of the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași and earned a PhD in Communication Sciences in 2005.
- He worked at the Galați County Telecommunications Directorate from 1985, becoming its director in 1991. He helped expand telephone access to households and was an associate professor at the University of Galați from 1993 to 1996.
- He wrote a book in 2001, co-designed three patents, and was named a Knight of the Order of the Star of Romania in 2002. He is married with one child and is a philatelist.

Other highlights:
- He faced a 2004 ethics complaint from an NGO but sued for damages and lost.
- He was investigated in the Microsoft licensing scandal in 2013–2014; the case was closed in 2018 due to the statute of limitations.
- He returned to the European Parliament in 2019 and continues to serve as an MEP.