The demands of the Foundation for the Defence of Citizens against State Abuses (FACIAS) regarding irresponsible vaccine purchases have not gone unheeded by the authorities. The Romanian state is cancelling the purchase of around eight million doses of vaccine, according to an announcement by the Health Minister.
Since May, FACIAS has asked the Ministry of Health to renegotiate the contracts and to reveal who are the people responsible for evaluating and signing the documents needed to purchase a huge number of doses, far beyond the real needs of Romanians.
The official answers received by FACIAS to the numerous questions raised on this issue have been completely lacking in transparency, with the authorities invoking confidentiality clauses and throwing the responsibilities to the European institutions. For this reason FACIAS has taken legal action against the Ministry of Health to force the Romanian authorities to stop the irresponsible procurement of vaccines, while demanding that those responsible for the situation be held accountable.
After months of stalling, today we finally have a concrete result of the actions of the Romanian authorities, who have announced that Romania will purchase only 3 million doses of vaccine in the coming period, out of the 11.2 million originally planned, which, according to the Health Minister, is a limited and justified quantity.
It follows, therefore, that it was never a question of the impossibility of renegotiating contracts, but simply of the national authorities' negligence and irresponsible spending of public money.
Even if a small step towards normality has been taken, Romanians and Romania are left with the damage caused so far by the senseless purchases already made, millions of unused vaccines that have either been donated or have expired in warehouses.
And even if, at least unspoken, mistakes made in the vaccine procurement process and in the evaluations made prior to the signing of contracts are acknowledged, no one has been held accountable to date.
FACIAS is a partner of Friends of Europe, a non-governmental, non-profit and apolitical organisation, strategic partner of the Council of Europe and the European Commission through the European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA), which was founded in 2008 and specialises in human rights advocacy. Our main concern and work is to defend citizens against state abuses and we act as a member of CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation) and FRA (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights).