7 European Union Countries Launch COVID-19 Passes Early To Restart Travel
While the European Union’s (EU) digital COVID-19 certificates are officially scheduled to launch on July 1, seven EU countries are testing the system before that date. In fact, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece and Poland have already started testing the system ahead of its official launch.
Bringing forward EU travel
As reported by Euronews.travel, currently, the EU digital COVID-19 certificates are being trialed for citizens and visitors in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Poland prior to the formal launch on July 1.
The digital certificate is free of charge and is set up to track people’s COVID-19 status. The app reveals if the holder has been vaccinated, has recovered from an infection, or has tested negative for the virus. Each testing center, health authority or hospital has its own digital signature and these are all stored in a secure database in each country. The details are then verified across the EU bloc via a “gateway” that went live this week.
How are the details stored?
The digital COVID-19 certificate is then stored on a mobile device. If required, citizens can also request a paper version and both versions will have a QR code containing the necessary information, along with a digital seal to ensure the certificate is authentic.
Once they have the digital certificate, every EU citizen or third-country national legally staying or residing in the EU, will be exempt from free movement restrictions. These restrictions include quarantine and extra COVID-19 testing, “unless they are necessary and proportionate to safeguard public health.”
Which vaccines apply?
EU countries will accept vaccination certificates for those vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency. These currently include the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. However, as other vaccines do exist, member states may decide to accept travelers who have received another vaccine, especially any listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use. However, it should be noted that non-vaccinated children may have to present a negative PCR test result in order to travel to certain EU countries.
After the official regulation governing the digital COVID-19 certificate comes in effect on July 1, EU countries will have up to six weeks to implement the system.
What about US travelers?
For those wishing to travel from outside the EU, as the digital COVID-19 certificate gets underway, the EU is working on opening to vaccinated citizens from third countries, including the US, for non-essential travel this summer.
Plans are also being made to permit citizens from low-risk countries to enter and a list of those accepted countries will be published soon. Currently, only eight countries are on the safe list, including Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. However, each EU member state will have the last say on its own border controls. Each will decide on whether to accept proof of vaccination to waive travel restrictions for third country citizens. However, some countries, including France, are already working on the introduction of a special digital pass for US travelers.
While there may still be delays on travel for certain readers, at least we all know that travel is gradually coming back. That dream vacation will happen one day!
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