“It is an enforceable measure, Romania must pay this amount”, announced the Minister of Health, after the lost trial with Pfizer

The Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, announced, after the decision of a court in Brussels to condemn our country to pay 600 million euros to the American pharmaceutical group Pfizer for the anti-Covid vaccine doses contracted during the pandemic and then cancelled, that, although it is not final, the measure of the Belgian court is enforceable, and “Romania must pay this amount”.

After a court of first instance in Brussels condemned, on Wednesday, Romania to pay an outstanding balance of 600 million euros for the anti-Covid vaccines ordered from Pfizer/BioNTech, Minister Alexandru Rogobete held a press conference on this topic during the evening.

He was also asked where this money would come from. “Most likely from the state budget, through the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Finance, it is a financial mechanism to be established later. Today, the Ministry of Health does not have this amount in the state budget,” he stated.

Alexandru Rogobete also confirmed that the decision of the Belgian court in the case filed by Pfizer against Romania, even if it is in the first instance, must be implemented.

“Yes, it is an enforceable measure. Regardless of whether an appeal is made or not, Romania must pay this amount. If the appeal is won, obviously the money will be returned to Romania, but yes, it is an enforceable measure,” the minister emphasized.

For how long, however, Rogobete says it is too early to know this information. “The court in Brussels has just ruled, we don't know how long the amount must be paid, we are going to analyze all the details in the next period, how much the penalties are, how they will be calculated, etc.”

“Tomorrow I will have a meeting with the Minister of Finance, we will try to find all the solutions so that the negative effects are minimized as much as possible, obviously this amount will have to be paid to the Pfizer company”, insisted the Minister of Health.

How did this process come about? Rogobete's explanations

-“I have to state from the start that the contract is not the same as the order. The contract says that Romania undertook to purchase these doses, and the order was to be submitted in subsequent stages, so that the entire quantity of the contract was extinguished.”

-“Based on the two contracts signed in 2020 and 2021, four orders were placed, two in December 2020, another in March 2021, then April 2021. For all these four orders, the vaccine doses were paid in full, we are talking here about an amount of 1.2 billion lei”.

-“Where does the lawsuit filed by Pfizer come from? From the fact that in 2021, in May, a third contract was signed for 29 million doses of vaccine, although from the first two contracts it followed that about 3.5 million doses were destroyed in the period 2022-2023. What does this mean? It means that a third order was placed, although there were still unused vaccine doses in Romania, and this was also proven by the fact that many ended up being destroyed”.

-“The decision of the Brussels court strictly refers to the 29 million doses of vaccine that have not been ordered, therefore not delivered, but are part of the contract signed by Romania in May 2021”.

-“But let's remember a little how things looked in the year 2022 towards the end, respectively 2023. There was quite a large stock of vaccines, we are talking about several million doses that were not used. What's more, they were starting to expire. The vaccination rate started to decrease. The Covid was no longer at the same intensity as in 2020 and 2021. So, the presence of these many millions, I'm talking about 29 million doses, was no longer necessary from the point of view of public health”.

– “I don't want to say that it is right or that it is wrong. What is wrong, from my point of view, is that huge amount that was signed in May 2021, which had no connection with reality, which has no medical estimate directly related to public health or the vaccination rate.”

Minister Alexandru Rogobete claimed in the conference that the 29 million doses of Pfizer vaccine were not ordered, but were contracted and, according to the contract, there was an obligation to be paid even if they were not ordered.

– “The doses were contracted, but it was not a firm order. If they were not contracted in May 2021, today Romania would not have had this amount of 3 billion lei to pay. It is true that in May 2021 we did not know in which direction the pandemic would go, but it is obvious that we knew for sure that the population of the country would not double. It can be seen from a distance that the vaccine doses, only those from Pfizer, far exceed the population of Romania, including reminder”.

“The renegotiation did not necessarily bring a fiscal advantage”

Regarding the renegotiation of the contract, Minister Alexandru Rogobete said that, in the context of that time, this did not mean that Romania no longer had to receive the doses.

-“It was not necessarily a refusal to renegotiate. The renegotiation was that we purchase them at a lower percentage. Basically, we should have purchased the 29 million doses, stored them and paid the cost of destroying those doses. So, that renegotiation was not necessarily a fiscal advantage at the time.”

Rogobete reminded that there is an ongoing file at the DNA in this case. “I cannot say whose fault it is. We are waiting for the DNA to come up with the answer and tell us who is to blame, who was wrong, how they were wrong, how those estimates were made and why the third contract was signed.”

-“What I can tell you from my point of view, as Minister of Health and as a doctor, is that the third contract with Pfizer was signed without a clear justification of the need, and the figures were overestimated.”

-“The vaccination campaign in Romania was definitely a failure, because the politicians decided to promote the vaccination themselves, instead of the health professionals”.

Romania loses in the lawsuit filed by Pfizer

A Brussels court on Wednesday first-instance ordered Poland and Romania to pay an outstanding balance for Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid vaccines, worth 1.3 billion euros and 600 million euros, respectively.

The American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer sued Poland and Romania in the fall of 2023, to enforce the execution of these purchase contracts that the two countries refused to fulfill in full, due to the end of the pandemic.

In this civil dispute, the court of first instance in Brussels estimated that the two countries were unable to demonstrate that “Pfizer would abuse its right by pursuing the execution of contractual obligations”.

The European Commission, which is based in Brussels, negotiated and concluded these purchases of anti-Covid vaccines on behalf of the EU member states, and therefore the competence to resolve disputes related to these contracts fell to Belgian justice. One of the largest contracts was signed with Pfizer in May 2021.

In April 2022, the Polish government at the time refused to receive and pay for vaccine doses that it considered unnecessary, amounting to 1.3 billion euros, given the evolution of the pandemic and the stocks already built up.

In a statement, Pfizer welcomed the decision issued by the Belgian court on Wednesday. According to the pharmaceutical company, the decision reflects “the importance of the contractual obligations that have allowed Europe to respond successfully to this pandemic”.

The American group “now expects member states to comply with the court's decision,” the statement added.

The case of Pfizer vs. Romania

Pfizer sued the Romanian state, in Brussels, in January 2024, for allegedly violating the contract for the purchase of anti-Covid vaccines concluded during the pandemic.

“Following a prolonged breach of contractual commitments and a period of discussions held in good faith between the parties, Pfizer and BioNTech have taken the difficult decision to initiate official proceedings against Romania”, announced a Pfizer representative at the time.

The Minister of Health at that time, Alexandru Rafila, stated that the situation was not unexpected, considering that the same thing happened in the case of two other EU states, Poland and Hungary.

Rafila explained then that enormous amounts of anti-Covid vaccine were contracted, which Romania would no longer need, as it is about 28 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer (worth approximately 550 million euros), negotiated by contract and which our country no longer ordered and, implicitly, no longer received.

“There is no legal basis for these financial compensations and, obviously, we could not order the remaining 28 million doses of vaccine that remained to be delivered under this contract, given that in Romania the interest in vaccination practically does not exist at this moment,” said Minister Alexandru Rafila.

Rafila said she wanted a “negotiation”

A few weeks before, Alexandru Rafila explained, in relation to the anti-Covid vaccines, that the contractual obligations assumed by Romania in the first half of 2021 still produce effects and he hopes that a negotiated solution will be reached with their producers. He insisted that there was no point in delivering vaccines that would not be used.

Also towards the end of 2023, Rafila said that there are chances to reach an agreement with one of the producers of anti-Covid vaccines, in order to end the contract amicably, but for the contract with Pfizer, solutions are still being sought, because “we should take another 27 million doses”.

The purchase of pandemic vaccines is also the subject of a DNA investigation, former Prime Minister Florin Cîţu, former Ministers of Health Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihăilă and former Secretary of State in the Ministry of Health Andrei Baciu being prosecuted for abuse of office with particularly serious consequences.

Pfizer, which developed the anti-Covid vaccine together with the German company BioNTech, also took Poland to court, after negotiations that lasted a year and did not lead to any agreement.