Let’s say someone very important owes you a big sum of money. Now imagine you have to make a loan from someone else, who’s also very important.
You do so knowing you will receive your debt from the very important person that owes you money. That debt is more than enough to pay for what you loan out, and everything is legal.

What happens if the one that owes you money does not deliver by the due date? You’re not short on cash, per se. You just owe someone more than you currently have. Would it be ethical to sic the person you owe money to on the person that owes you money? Keep in mind, they’re both important, while you’re nobody, on their scale.

I’d love to live in a universe where that would work. Sadly, even though you’re not really to blame, you get to take the fall. And that does not make perfect sense, now does it?

Now, imagine the state owes you a ton of money, you’re a pharmacy, and you yourself owe money to the distributors. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to tell said distributors that the damn state is trying to take you off the market? The state and the distributors could easily arrive to a long-term agreement or some sort of installment based payoff. But no. The state cannot be declared insolvent, while you can. And that is exactly what will happen to you.

Now, imagine the state of Romania owes most of the pharmacies from Timişoara a ton of money… you can figure out the rest, yeah?

Well, that’s actually happening.