Why does Alexandru Rafila say that he could not make a decision regarding Pfizer vaccines when he was a minister / What does Vlad Voiculescu contradict him with

The former Minister of Health Alexandru Rafila declared on Wednesday evening, on Digi24, that he could not accept the option by which the Romanian state paid up to 170 million euros for the anti-Covid vaccines from Pfizer, representing a “flexibility fee”, as an option for solving the case at the time, because there was no legal basis.

Rafila explained, thus, that his ministry could not make a decision in this regard without the consent of the prime minister at the time. “This decision far exceeded the competences of the Ministry of Health”, he claims.

“This problem regarding the payment of 600 million euros (to Pfizer) was generated by a reckless contract concluded by Mrs. Minister (Ioana) Mihăilă, Mr. Prime Minister (Florin) Cîțu and Mr. Deputy Prime Minister (Tánczos) Barna in May 2021,” accused Alexandru Rafila in an intervention on Digi24.

About how the discussions with Pfizer regarding the purchased anti-Covid vaccines, negotiations brokered by the European Commission, would have gone later, Alexandru Rafila states that: “There were online discussions and, at one point, because there was a significant number of member states that did not agree with the various options that had been proposed over time, they came up with the last option, which was accepted by the majority of the member states, minus three countries: Romania, Poland and Hungary. Bulgaria signed on the last day. And Bulgaria was in doubt”.

According to the former health minister, this option involved the situation in which “a fine, a flexibility fee, 10 euros per undelivered dose was paid. We were supposed to receive 16 million doses and instead of paying 320 million euros, they stopped sending them and we paid a kind of fine, 160-170 million euros. We had to buy a certain amount of vaccines in the next four years.”

“Not choosing an option, we went with the original one. This decision far exceeded the powers of the Ministry of Health. I could not choose for three reasons. The first: the contract had been signed by the minister, the prime minister and the acting deputy prime minister at the time. In the mirror, when you change this contract, you had to inform the prime minister (Nicolae Ciucă – no) to make a decision. We needed the GEO to make this payment, to 160-170 million euros for something you didn't receive. There is no such possibility in the legislation,” said Rafila.

“It was a very serious problem. There was not even the money in the budget of the Ministry of Health to make this payment possible. So from the Government's reserve fund… There is no legal way. No one could give proof of payment,” the former health minister also claimed.

Vlad Voiculescu: “There is a free option, it only requires a decision by the Minister of Health”

Intervening in the same show on Digi24, another former minister of health, Vlad Voiculescu (in the Cîțu government, before minister Ioana Mihăilă), argued instead that “the three points that were on the table of Mr. Rafila and on the table of Mr. Ciucă were the following: a reduction by a third of the amount of vaccines, a reduction in half of the costs by paying half the price, i.e. 9.75 instead of 19.5”.

“Point three was an option that was free, it did not require a decision by anyone, except the Minister of Health, which meant rescheduling the vaccine doses over 4 years. That would have saved us some 150-200 million euros, which we will pay as interest at this moment,” Vlad Voiculescu said.

Romania loses in the lawsuit filed by Pfizer

On April 1, 2026, a court in Brussels ordered, at first instance, both Romania and Poland to pay an outstanding balance for Pfizer/BioNTech anti-Covid vaccines that were ordered and then canceled. According to the court's decision, Romania has to pay approximately 600 million euros.

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.

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.