A photo showing Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos looking for his seat in economy class when flying to Germany earlier this month has become viral in social media. While many people praised Ciolos for his modesty, his opponents criticized him and said he only did this for publicity.

Dacian Ciolos decided to reply to his critics and said he had flown economy class many times and didn't do this for PR.

The Prime Minister went to Bavaria in early September, where he met BMW representatives and tried to convince them to invest in Romania. He was accompanied by several other Romanian officials and a few journalists.

A journalist from the public television TVR who was on the same flight took the photo and posted it online. He also wrote that a flight attendant told the Prime Minister he could sit in business class, as not all the seats were taken, but he preferred to keep his economy class seat.

Under the eyes of fellow airline passengers, the Romanian PM took his luggage to his seat. The other members of the official delegation also flew in economy class.

After this episode, the journalists from Vice Romania said on Facebook that “the Dacian Ciolos government has done some extraordinary things, but that doesn’t mean that their campaign with ministers who work nonstop like robots, economy class flights, and Wisdom of the Earth is any less pathetic.”

Dacian Ciolos commented to this post: “I’m also not comfortable with this whole discussion about economy class. I’ve been using economy class ever since I was working at the European Commission. I’ve traveled economy many times since I’ve been appointed PM. But now, with this picture (which I knew nothing about until I saw it in the media), people think that this is my PR campaign. Why can’t we accept normality as being normal without so much speculation?”

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Stiri.tvr.ro; photo by Ionut Gheorghe)