The European Union launched on Thursday it digital COVID certificate system designed to help citizens travel more freely across the 27-nation bloc and open up summer tourism.
The EU digital COVID certificate, which can be on a smartphone or printed out, takes the form of a QR-code, which indicates if a traveller has received been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, has received a recent negative test result or has immunity due to recent recovery from a COVID-19 infection.
It is designed to be free of charge, issued and valid in all EU countries and set out in the national language and in English.
The system also extends to non-EU countries of the border-free Schengen zone – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
The system enters into application on Thursday, with a six-week phase-in period for EU member states not yet ready. For this period, other certificate-style formats can still be used and should be accepted.
How it works?
The certificate system cleared the approval process in mid-June, but EU countries still had to decide how they should be used.
They agreed that people who have been fully vaccinated for 14 days should be able to travel freely from one EU country to another. About 40% of EU adults are fully vaccinated.
Restrictions for other travellers should be based on the degree to which the country they are coming from has COVID-19 infections under control, based on a colour coding sit by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
For travel from a green zone, there should be no restrictions, from orange – potential for a test; for red – a possible quarantine; and non-essential travel discouraged for “dark red”.
Children aged 12 or more could be tested, but would only quarantine if an adult accompanying also had to.
Border policy as a whole, though, is a matter for individual EU countries, so they can still set their own rules.
Several EU countries have run trials before July 1. However, it is not clear whether police or those controlling borders have the equipment and manpower to check travellers.
Airlines have warned of chaos and hours-long queues unless countries coordinate the roll-out better.
WTTC welcomes the launch
Virginia Messina, Senior Vice President WTTC, said: “WTTC is confident the EU Digital COVID Certificate will boost consumer confidence and the wider Travel & Tourism sector across Europe, which has been in a fight for survival for over a year.
“The certificate is a great example and should aid the return of safe international travel; help recover jobs and signal the revival of a sector which will be critical to the economic recovery across the continent.
“We’d like to commend the EU Commission and institutions for adopting this swiftly, however, EU Member States must take a coordinated and harmonised approach, aligning policies to avoid fragmentation and confusion among holidaymakers who needs easy to understand rules and regulations to make travel seamless during this difficult time.
“The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global Travel & Tourism sector has wiped out millions of jobs and seen its contribution to GDP plummet. The lives of the millions of people who rely on the sector have also been turned upside down by the pandemic, causing huge stress and concern.
“We are hopeful the new Digital COVID Certificate will play a major role in safely reopening a sector that will be critical to saving jobs, livelihoods and economies around the world.”