The EU will launch health passports in June

The green digital certificate of the European Union, the new document to prove that the traveller holder has been vaccinated against COVID-19, has recovered from the disease or the results of their tests coronavirus if not in any of the two previous situations, will be issued to EU citizens in mid-June, according to the plans of the European Commission.

Listen to this article

This was reported during an interview for the French radio and television channel RTL LCI by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, who in February was put at the head of the new working group on vaccine production by the EC and presented a few days ago the prototype of digital green certificates, popularly called EU vaccine passports, in digital version and printed on paper.

“We can be sure that all Europeans who want to be vaccinated will have fair access to the vaccine, as will be the case in the next two or three months, so it will be good to have a health certificate that proves their condition,” said the commissioner Breton.

The EU Commission presented its proposal for the creation of a Digital Green Certificate, in order to have a tool that allows travel and tourism to resume in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to those citizens who are well immunized by vaccination or for having passed the disease. Likewise, it will facilitate the carrying of the verified information about the results of their COVID tests to those who are not in any of these cases, but are complying with this requirement of the country of destination of their trip

By including all three situations in a single document, the Commission aims to avoid discrimination against unvaccinated people.

The prototype document proposed by the EC, presented by Commissioner Breton, contemplates the inclusion of data of the holder such as name, date of birth, date of issue, information on the vaccine / test / recovery and a unique scannable identifier of the certificate.

Breton stressed that he was convinced that digital green certificates will undoubtedly allow for a better summer season compared to last year.

Data shows that the travel and tourism sector recorded a massive loss of around 3.8 billion euros in 2020, while more than 62 million jobs were lost.