Brussels sets out plans for vaccine passports

Urusula von der Leyen announces Covid-19 passports to facilitate safe free movement inside the EU

Credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

British hopes of summer holidays in the European Union were raised on Wednesday after Brussels set out plans for vaccine passports. 

The European Commission said its digital green certificate, effectively a vaccine passport, would eventually be open to tourists from non-EU countries like Britain and potentially by the summer. 

The certificate is designed to facilitate travel within the EU by showing information including whether someone has had coronavirus, been vaccinated or had a test. It comes in the form of a QR code on a smartphone or in print.

"We all want the tourist season to start. We can’t afford to lose another season," Vera Jourova, the European Commission Vice President, said. "Tourism, and also culture and other sectors that are dependent on tourism, terribly suffer. We’re talking about tens of millions of jobs."

Brussels hopes the system will be ready for internal EU travel by June before opening out the scheme to international visitors. 

British tourists will also be able to apply for a certificate in the member state they are visiting. The certificate is free for people in the EU. 

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That means British people with both doses of the vaccines or proof of antibodies or a negative test are likely to be able to go on holiday in tourism-dependent countries such as Greece, Spain and Croatia. 

The commission said that an EU ban on non-essential travel would be lifted in countries with high vaccination rates first. 

Britain has now vaccinated more than 25 million people but EU officials said there was no timeline yet on extending the scheme to the UK.

The new system will be “open to initiatives” being developed globally on vaccine passports. 

Non-EU countries should be encouraged to recognise the certificate when lifting their own restrictions, the commission said, suggesting reciprocal arrangements could be made.

But legislation announced on Wednesday would empower the commission to recognise certificates issued in non-EU countries if they complied with “international standards” and used systems that could work with the EU technology.

The commission said the EU system could provide a model for other certificates and said it would have high levels of data protection. 

It warned that EU member states and European Parliament would have to approve the bill quickly if it is to be ready by the summer. 

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, added the travel certificates "will help boost tourism and the economies that rely heavily on it".

The plan, however, will face stiff resistance from many member states, such as France, who are concerned that those still awaiting vaccinations would be discriminated against.

The commission swerved a potential row over the use of vaccines which have not been authorised by the European Medicines Agency, such as the Russian and Chinese jabs. 

It would be up to individual countries to decide whether those vaccinations were accepted, the commission said. 

However, the EU vaccination programme is lagging far behind the UK’s and the jabs will have to be stepped up if lockdowns on the continent are to be lifted.