The court of first instance in Brussels ruled on Wednesday that Poland must accept the remaining vaccine doses covered by its contract with Pfizer and pay the company PLN 5.64 billion, along with interest.
Poland’s health ministry said the judgment is not final and that it will appeal.
The dispute stems from a 2021 agreement signed in Brussels between the European Commission and Pfizer on behalf of European Union member states at the height of the pandemic.
Under that deal, Poland committed to buying a set number of doses on an agreed schedule. In 2022, however, it stopped accepting further deliveries. Pfizer sued Poland in September 2023.
The Belgian court rejected Poland’s main arguments. It said the evidence did not show irregularities in the award of the public contract to Pfizer. It also found that Poland had not proved the contract terms on price, dose numbers, or liability waivers amounted to an abuse of market dominance by the company.
The court further ruled that neither Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine nor the later drop in COVID-19 infections justified canceling or changing Poland’s obligations under the deal.
It also said Poland had not shown that Pfizer acted improperly by continuing to enforce the contract.
The Polish health ministry said the ruling now requires detailed legal analysis, especially on how it would be carried out in practice, including the timing of any deliveries and the method of financial settlement. It said Poland would use every available legal measure to try to change the ruling and defend its interests.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk used the ruling to attack the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government led by Mateusz Morawiecki, which made the original purchase commitments.
In a post on X, Tusk said Poland would now have to pay for what he called "PiS’s extreme stupidity,” adding that the matter was “unfortunately not an April Fools’ joke.”
The ruling has broader political weight because it revives criticism of Poland’s pandemic-era vaccine procurement.
In a report published last September, Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK) questioned COVID-19 vaccine purchases worth nearly PLN 10 billion, saying demand had been estimated unreliably.
The Brussels court also ruled on Wednesday against Romania in a similar case, ordering Bucharest to take delivery of the vaccines it had refused and pay EUR 600 million.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP