Prime Minister Luca Niculescu will walk the full distance between the Victoria Palace and the headquarters of the National Bank of Romania on Monday, a route the government has measured at roughly four kilometres, and will then walk back again before his afternoon meeting with business representatives. The Chancellery confirmed that the prime minister's motorcade will follow him at a respectful distance, carrying his briefing folders and a folding chair.
The walk, which the Palace described as a deliberate exercise in fiscal discipline, was planned by a newly formed Directorate for Pedestrian Governance, staffed by eleven officials who spent the past week measuring pavements with a surveyor's wheel. Traffic on Calea Victoriei will be diverted for the duration, and municipal crews have begun painting a white line along the route so that ministers may follow it without consulting a map.
Asked why the prime minister had chosen to make the journey on foot rather than by car, the Palace spokesperson said: «A deficit is reduced one step at a time, and the Prime Minister intends to take every one of them personally.» The spokesperson added that from next week all ministers will be expected to walk to cabinet meetings, and that the Ministry of Finance has already ordered sixty pairs of sensible shoes for its staff.
Bankers at the central bank said they were preparing a reception with bottled water and a small bench in the lobby, while the business representatives who will meet the prime minister in the afternoon have been asked to arrive on foot as well. The Palace has not said whether the meeting will take place in the open air.