EU leaders welcomed on Tuesday 25 May the agreement reached on the EU Digital Covid-19 certificate, which will facilitate, from the end of June, the free movement in the EU of people who have been vaccinated, tested negative for Covid-19, or recovered from the disease (see EUROPE 12724/6).
I am “delighted that an agreement has been reached”, reacted Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on 25 May, the European certificate being a major step and “a concrete act that shows how the EU is making a positive contribution to the daily lives of citizens”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also welcomed the agreement, saying it was important that the legal basis for the certificate existed and that Member States could work towards its implementation.
“Cohesive implementation is needed in this respect to ensure a rapid return to freedom of travel in the EU”, commented Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
To this end, the EU-27 called on the EU Council to revise the recommendation on travel restrictions within the EU in mid-June, which had been amended and tightened in early February in response to the worsening health situation.
Furthermore, the European Council welcomed the new recommendation on restrictions on travel to the EU from third countries for non-essential reasons, which will soon result in a new list of third countries (see EUROPE 12722/1). In particular, it will have to adapt to the new criteria for allowing such non-essential travel to the EU, i.e. a vaccination requirement or arrival from countries where the incidence rate does not exceed 75 cases/100,000 population over the last 2 weeks. This list currently includes only seven countries.
“We need to improve our coordination at the borders. We must ensure that the movements that will gradually resume to third countries, particularly for tourism purposes, are not accompanied by the importation of new forms of the virus”, reacted the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
“France has taken a strong position at the borders in this respect. We have strengthened the European coordination mechanisms to create an emergency brake on certain third countries whose health situation is rapidly worsening. And we will agree on a common global mapping to track the evolution of variants around the world”.
The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties will approve the negotiation of the EU certificate on 26 May.
See the text of the European Council conclusions on Covid-19: https://bit.ly/3wvdveK (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with editorial staff)