The government, about the decision in the Pfizer case: The deadline for the appeal has not started to run. “The Ministry of Finance is currently evaluating what it has to do”
The spokeswoman for the Government, Ioana Dogioiu, stated on Friday that the court's decision in the Pfizer case has not yet been sent to the Romanian state by the bailiff, and the deadline for submitting the appeal runs from the moment of this official notification and is 30 days.
“What happened is certainly an undesirable situation, it is certainly an effect of some government measures that must be evaluated. This is not the place to apportion blame. What is important is what can be done in the future, namely, the Ministry of Finance is currently evaluating what it has to do, together with lawyers, both those in the country and with the joint team of lawyers with the Polish state, if necessary and under what conditions and what are the conditions for an appeal with chances, and at the same time a negotiation is being attempted with the Pfizer company to see how this decision can be applied, under the most favorable conditions for Romania”, said the spokeswoman of the Executive, according to News.ro.
Dogioiu specified that there is a mandate that the Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Health, receives through a memorandum, each in its own area, so that the best result can be reached.
According to Ioana Dogioiu, we are in an evaluation phase, and the Memorandum must be based on some results.
“For now, the decision is being evaluated, the appropriateness of the moment of an appeal is being evaluated”, she also said, pointing out that “the decision has been communicated in the press, but has not yet been transmitted, through the bailiff, to the Romanian state, and the deadline for submitting the appeal runs from the moment of this official notification”, the Government representative, Dogioiu, also affirmed, pointing out that the deadline is 30 days.
A Belgian court on Wednesday ordered Poland and Romania to take over a delivery of 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 billion) worth of COVID-19 vaccines produced by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer. According to the court statement, Romania has to pay approximately 600 million euros.
Asked what is the fee that has been paid so far to the team of lawyers that represented Romania in the Pfizer case, Dogioiu said that he has no information, but he will get information about the fee paid, after he talks to the Ministry of Finance.
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.
