The Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity (Romanian: Partidul Libertate, Unitate și Solidaritate, PLUS) was a pro-European, liberal[1]political party established on 26 October 2018,[2][3] whose president was Dacian Cioloș, former Prime Minister of Romania from 2015 until 2017, elected on 26 January 2019.[4] The party had its origin in the Movement Romania Together (MRÎ), a project which they gave up due to the setting up delay in court.[5] The party merged in 2021 with the Save Romania Union (USR) with which it has been in a political alliance called 2020 USR-PLUS Alliance from 2019 to 2021, then formally activating as a sole, unified party known as USR PLUS (subsequently renamed back to Save Romania Union or USR for short).[6][7]
On 30 March 2018, former Prime Minister of RomaniaDacian Cioloș announced his plans to establish a new political party, the Romania Together Movement (Mișcarea România Împreună), together with some of the former members of the Cioloș Cabinet, such as Dragoș Pîslaru, Vlad Voiculescu, Alin Mituța, Dragoș Tudorache, and Anca Dragu.[8] Despite the party gaining notoriety in the subsequent months and appearing in various opinion polls,[9][10][11] its official registration was never finalized due to various appeals and delays in the legal process, which Cioloș claimed to be politically motivated.[12]
After almost 9 months, on 15 December, Cioloș announced in Cluj-Napoca that the Freedom, Unity and Solidarity Party (Partidul Libertății, Unității și Solidarității, PLUS) was registered by three of his colleagues, "who share the same values, the same principles, anonymous people, but who wanted to offer a helping hand". He also claimed that the former effort, the Romania Together Movement, will be abandoned and that he and his team will focus on the development of PLUS. After the announcement, more than 7,500 people requested to join the party in 24 hours.[13]
The first National Convention of PLUS, which had the role of electing the president and the National Council of the organization, took place in Bucharest on 26 January 2019. Dacian Cioloș was elected president with 99.17% of the votes.[14] Having previously announced his intention to participate in the European Parliament elections,[15]Cioloș was also chosen to lead the PLUS list for the elections.[16]
MEPCristian Preda announced on 29 January that he is joining PLUS, allowing the party to have delegates in all polling stations.[17]
PLUS has not defined its ideology clearly. However, a manifesto was published on the party's website[20] expressing support for liberty, social justice, transparency in public administration, as well as commitment to Romania's EU and NATO membership. Cioloș, the party's president, claimed in an interview that PLUS is situated in "the centre, centre-right area".[21]
.jpg)
