Bolojan, about the sentence in the case of anti-Covid vaccine doses: We need to get in touch with Pfizer as soon as possible, to start a negotiation

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan declared on Thursday that he “received the news of the sentence, in the first instance, but unfortunately enforceable, of the Court of Belgium, by which we have to pay almost 3.5 billion lei, to which are added daily penalties”. He says that “what we need to do as quickly as possible is to get in touch with Pfizer, start a negotiation, block the interest payment.”

The prime minister's reaction comes after Romania lost, in the first instance, the lawsuit in Belgium filed by the pharmaceutical group Pfizer, for the anti-Covid vaccine doses contracted during the pandemic and then cancelled. Romania must now pay an outstanding balance of at least 600 million euros to Pfizer.

“Unfortunately, we received the news of the sentence, in the first instance, but unfortunately executory, of the Court of Belgium, by which we have to pay the Pfizer company for the vaccine doses we contracted during the pandemic years. A significant amount, which is almost 3.5 billion (lei), to which daily penalties are added”, said Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan on Europa FM, according to News.ro.

“What we need to do as quickly as possible in the coming days is to get in touch with Pfizer, start a negotiation, block the interest payment and see how we can find a formula for this payment to be made in a staggered manner. And we are also consulting with the legal team, because Poland is in this situation, in an identical situation – on the same day we had two related lawsuits, Romania and Poland. And Poland lost. So, we are consulting on what needs to be done in the next period”, said the head of the Executive.

“Some rash decisions backfire”

Ilie Bolojan also said that “this is what happens when, being in government, sometimes wrong decisions are made, ill-considered decisions, which turn against us in a longer or shorter time”.

“Unfortunately, this also happened in connection with this situation,” he pointed out.

Asked who is to blame for this situation, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan stated that he requested a situation from the ministries.

“I asked the Ministry of Finance, which worked together with lawyers to defend Romania in this case and the Ministry of Health, to make a situation, because it seems to me common sense that public opinion should have a chronology of what happened as accurately as possible”, he explained.

“There were several opportunities to renegotiate, to close things”

The prime minister also emphasized that far too many vaccine doses were ordered and that the main decision was taken by the government headed by Florin Cîţu.

“Without knowing all the details, I definitely ordered more doses than I needed. I understand that there were more than 100 million doses, which is much more than the population of our country. We did not sell them when we could still sell some of them or solve certain problems. We did not renegotiate with this company immediately, when things were “hot”, as other countries managed to do, and unfortunately we have not evolved in these years either. And I ended up in this situation. So, there is a lot of responsibilities and, of course, the main decision to contract too many doses was taken during the mandate of the Cîţu government. This is the reality”, said Ilie Bolojan, according to Agerpres.

Regarding the fact that the former Minister of Health Alexandru Rafila should have negotiated with Pfizer, the Prime Minister showed that, “since that date, being quite many years already, there were several opportunities to renegotiate, to close things, which, once they were missed, led us to a trial that was resolved in the first instance, unfortunately, executory”.

“It is difficult for me now to throw personal responsibilities on one person or another, but as I told you, when you are in a public position and have a great responsibility, you must think very carefully about what you do, because your statements, the signing of some documents by you, the non-analysis of them or the postponement of some decisions, which you can put into practice or not, have, you see, subsequent results or very high costs that, in one way or another, the citizens pay, directly or indirectly,” the prime minister said.