Spokesman of the opposition’s Social Democratic Party (PSD), Senator Lucian Romascanu, said that the photo taken in an office of the Victoria Palace of Government and which led to the fining of the Premier and several ministers for smoking and not wearing a mask indoors, proves their “disrespect of the law” and towards the citizens who are obliged to observe restrictions, and “will give evidence to the future and for history of what the Orban Government has meant for Romania.”

“The infamous picture circulated in the public space in the last two days shows us what the Orban Government truly stands for – disrespect of the law, disrespect for the people they forced to stay locked in their homes, whom they oblige to wear masks and observe social distancing. All these requirements that are mandatory by law for the population are just optional for the members of the government,” Lucian Romascanu told a news conference held at the party headquarters this Sunday.

Commenting on the snapshot, the PSD spokesman said: “Mr Orban once said it was taken after 3 p.m., then changed the hour to 5 p.m. in another statement. You may probably remember how, at the beginning of his term, [the Premier] was crying out loud that nobody is at work at the Victoria Palace at 9 p.m., for them to carry on with their job. Work probably starts after serving this appetizer and then continues until 9 p.m. And something else – Mr Orban tried to mend his and the government’s image by paying a fine of 3,000 lei for these violations of the law. I would just like to ask Mr Orban, who until recently was living on a wage of 3,000 lei as a private sector employee, how does it feel to spend one’s entire wage on the fine served for what he did?”

A picture is worth a thousand words, “and these thousand words have been rolling in the public space with either a touch of indignation or of humor. Things are very simple, this photo actually gives evidence to the future and for history of what the Orban Government has meant for Romania,” the PSD representative also stated.

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The General Directorate of the Bucharest Police informed having handed down on Saturday a total of 18,000 lei in fines for five members of the Executive for failure to wear a protection mask indoors and smoking in spaces where this is forbidden.

The government also announced on Saturday that Prime Minister Ludovic Orban paid, through the platform www.ghiseul.ro, two fines of 3,000 lei in total, the maximum amount provided by the law, for smoking and not wearing a mask indoors.

A photo taken in a Victoria Palace office emerged in the public space, showing PM Ludovic Orban and ForMin Bogdan Aurescu smoking, while joined by Ministers Lucian Bode and Virgil Popescu who are not wearing masks, and by Deputy PM Raluca Turcan who has the mask lowered under her chin. The pic was reportedly taken on Prime Minister Orban’s birthday.