Brussels Court Orders Romania to Pay €600 Million to Pfizer Over Refused Vaccines

A Brussels court of first instance ruled that Romania must pay approximately 600 million euros — equivalent to roughly 3,395,000,000 lei — to Pfizer for anti-COVID vaccine doses the country refused to accept in 2022 and 2023. The final sum, including interest and penalties, amounts to 3,395,000,000 lei, with nearly 400,000,000 lei added through accumulated charges, according to Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete. The ruling is not final and Romania may contest it, but the decision carries the character of an enforceable title, meaning the funds must be placed in a transitory account regardless of any appeal. The case centers on a series of chaotic and contradictory decisions by Romanian health authorities during the tenure of former Health Minister Alexandru Rafila and former Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă.

Romania's zigzag decisions laid bare in Pfizer's complaint Court documents obtained by G4Media detail a pattern of shifting positions by Romanian authorities over a matter of weeks in late 2022. On November 8, 2022, Romania refused Pfizer's offer to store doses in a central warehouse. Eight days later, Romania requested delivery of 3 million doses to seven domestic locations. Two days after that, it reversed course again, citing insufficient freezing capacity, and asked to receive only 699,840 doses. Romania then proposed using the very central warehouse it had just rejected, received a deadline of December 9 for a response, and confirmed its participation on December 16 — a week late. On December 21, Romania declared the warehouse agreement could not be signed, yet simultaneously requested urgent delivery of 2.3 million doses by December 28, before reducing that order to 1.1 million doses, which it did not pay for in full. Of the 3 million doses contracted for November 2022, Romania ultimately accepted 699,840 in November and 1,100,160 in December, according to the Pfizer complaint.

Romania signed its third Vaccine Purchase Agreement with Pfizer in May 2021. The dispute over dose deliveries emerged at the end of 2022 during the mandate of Health Minister Alexandru Rafila. In May 2023, the European Commission negotiated Amendment 5 with Pfizer, offering all member states options to reschedule deliveries over four years or reduce contracted volumes, which 24 of the 27 EU member states accepted. Romania, along with Hungary and Poland, did not accept the offer. Romania did not transmit any position — neither acceptance nor refusal — and the deadline expired, according to statements by former Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu cited in source articles.

Amendment 5 could have saved Romania over 260 million euros Former Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu, now a member of the Save Romania Union, detailed the financial consequences of Romania's inaction on Amendment 5. Under the terms of that offer, the delivery of doses scheduled for 2023 would have been spread over four years, eliminating interest charges until 2027. The total EU-level dose volume was to be reduced from 450 million to 285 million — a cut of 36.7 percent — at no cost, which for Romania would have meant cancelling 7,175,000 doses and saving 140 million euros. A flexibility fee of 9.75 euros per dose would have converted the purchase obligation into an ordering option, saving Romania an additional 120.7 million euros. „Hundreds of millions of euros paid by Romanians because Minister Rafila dodged it, by not signing the Pfizer offer, not placing a memorandum on the agenda, and not presenting the problem to the Government.” — Vlad Voiculescu via Stirile ProTV Voiculescu described Romania's non-response as "probably the most expensive 'leaving on read' in the history of Romania."

Dose volume reduction (7.175M doses): 140, Flexibility fee reduction: 120.7, Total potential savings: 260

USR files criminal complaint against Rafila at anticorruption directorate The Save Romania Union announced it would file a criminal complaint against Alexandru Rafila at the National Anticorruption Directorate on Thursday, targeting the former minister for his failure to act on the renegotiation offer. USR deputy Cezar Drăgoescu said the complaint would be submitted by colleague Emanuel Ungureanu. „From my point of view, the person responsible is Alexandru Rafila, Minister of Health at that time, but also the Government as a whole, led by Nicolae Ciucă. Today, we from USR, through Emanuel Ungureanu, will file a criminal complaint at the DNA against Alexandru Rafila, at 14:30, for what he did not do, specifically for the refusal to renegotiate the contract with Pfizer.” — Cezar Drăgoescu via Ziare.com USR Vice-President Radu Mihaiu said responsibility for the loss was shared between Rafila and former Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă, whose government was in office during 2022 and 2023 when the critical decisions were made. Drăgoescu also rejected PSD attempts to implicate USR-affiliated ministers, noting that Voiculescu served as health minister only between December 2020 and April 2021, before the Pfizer contract in question was signed in May 2021. Current Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete said on Thursday that he had discussed the situation with Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan and was scheduled to meet with the Finance Minister to assess available scenarios, but that no decision on payment source or method had yet been made. Rogobete noted that the Ministry of Health did not have the required sum allocated in its 2024 budget, and that payment deadlines had not yet been formally communicated by the court or the law firm handling the case.