Cyufjy

A few weeks ago a Romanian bought a personalized number plate from Sweden that seemed perfectly fine for Swedish Transport Agency is usually very vigilant when approving such plates.

However, this plate included a word that it is usually considered very offensive:

The car’s plates read “MUIE PSD”. According to the Romanian dictionary
DEX, the first meaning of the term “muie”, which comes from the Romani
language, is “mouth” and one of its derivate meanings is “to deceive”.
However, the term is more commonly used as a swear, (..)

Since the target was the Romanian Social Democratic Party, the main party in power, (not a person), some argued that the plates should be allowed and removing them by the police is a limitation of freedom of expression.

Question: Does freedom of speech/expression cover offensive words against a political party?

I'll admit I'm not up to date on Romania specific, but the purpose of Free Speech is to criticize public policy and politicians. Any government that does not allow citizens to use colorful language to criticizes political organizations but claims it respects Free Speech probably doesn't truly have free speech.

HOWEVER

Most license plates are issued by a government of some kind and are usually a government mechanic to identify the vehicle and authorize it to be on the road. Thus, license plates should be considered Government Speech and thus subject to Government censorship laws. A vanity plate is effectively paying for a specific pattern to appear on a plate/tag rather than a randomly generated one. Thus the Government has the right to refuse to endorse messages that are controversial in this nature and require a less offensive message to be created for your plate (or issue you a valid random plate, with no refund).

Even in the United States, one of the most liberal countries with respect to restricted speech laws, a license plate does not confer upon the car owner a license to exercise their free speech (pardon the pun) registry departments regularly refuse to issue vanity plates for obscene or offensive content in the message.

The Romanian constitution has in Article 30:

(1) Freedom of expression of thoughts, opinions, or beliefs, and freedom of any creation, by words, in writing, in pictures, by sounds or other means of communication in public are inviolable.

Subject to

(6) Freedom of expression shall not be prejudicial to the dignity, honour, privacy of a person, and to the right to one's own image.

(7) Any defamation of the country and the nation, any instigation to a war of aggression, to national, racial, class or religious hatred, any incitement to discrimination, territorial separatism, or public violence, as well as any obscene conduct contrary to morality shall be prohibited by law.

Organisations including political parties do not have special protection.

Whether this is language is so offensive that it is "obscene conduct contrary to morality" is something only a court could decide. In the USA it would not be.

Of relevance was that a 2010 proposal to ban profanity on internet forums was not passed and largely ignored (wikipedia)