President Nicusor Dan said on Tuesday that Romania must make public all information related to the purchase of Pfizer vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, carried out four to five years ago and he underlined that transparency is essential to combat disinformation and to clarify political responsibilities.

The statements were made during a visit to the major burns centre at the 'Pius Brinzeu' County Emergency Clinical Hospital in Timisoara, where the president was accompanied by Minister of Health Alexandru Rogobete.

'We must make everything public regarding Pfizer from four or five years ago, when the contract was signed. Earlier I spoke about information warfare. It is very important, because what do we see in the media space? We see certain media outlets placing responsibility on one politician, we see other media outlets placing responsibility on another politician, and unfortunately we do not see a distinction between what is objective reality - the sequence of objective elements, contracts, who signed, what commitments were made,' the president explained.

He called on journalists to act responsibly in presenting information correctly.

'Unfortunately, this is a way the media operates. If we perpetuate this way of working, if an ordinary Romanian watches and says, look, those say this, those say that, all the time, all the time, all the time without there being a reference point, then why would that ordinary Romanian not believe that I bought my doctoral thesis, that I signed an order to send 300,000 Romanians to Ukraine? So there is a responsibility that you have to filter what is objective in our social reality and what is opinion, which is obviously permitted. But we must separate out what is objective,' the head of state added.

The president also commented on the legal situation regarding vaccine procurement, after a court ruled that Romania must return 600 million euros in the case concerning Pfizer contracts.

'There is a negotiation so that this amount that Romania has to pay can be transformed into other products that are useful for our medical system. But the ministers will provide further details on this,' the president said.

A court in Brussels ruled at first instance that Poland and Romania must pay outstanding balances for anti-COVID vaccines ordered from the pharmaceutical group Pfizer/BioNTech, amounting to 1.3 billion euros and 600 million euros respectively, according to a statement from the court, AFP reports. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Oana Ghita; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)