On Thursday, the government, through a memorandum, will authorize the Ministry of Finance to enter into an agreement on legal assistance to represent the interests of Romania in the legal process filed by Pfizer against the Romanian state.

During the Executive meeting on Thursday, the permission of the Ministry of Finance to enter into legal aid and representative services contracts to ensure the representation of Romania in the case registered under no. F5331-23, pending in the French-speaking Court of First Instance in Brussels, with a first trial date of February 20, 2024.

In response, Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said last week that Pfizer would “do well” in a lawsuit filed in Romania and said it seemed unnatural “for a pharmaceutical company to undermine trust in vaccination.”

“Pfizer sued Romania and there are certain procedures at the government level where either the government or the finance ministry hires a law firm. The problem is that the firm that will effectively represent Romania in court must know Belgian law, and the process is conducted in French (…) I contacted those in Poland, I had a discussion related to this process, and an attempt to coordinate the positions of the two countries. third country, Hungary. We’ll see if we can have joint or separate representation, but either way the legal teams have to communicate with each other. I suspect that Pfizer will also do well in this process, because at least to me as a public health worker, it seems completely unnatural for a pharmaceutical company to undermine the credibility of vaccinations in general, I don’t mean the COVID vaccine,” Rafila said in Sunday evening on Antena 3.

Last December, Pfizer notified the authorities in Bucharest of the opening of legal proceedings to recover certain sums of money, given the incomplete purchase by the Romanian side of 28 million doses of the Covid vaccine, after which the first court date is due to take place in February.