As announced at the European Summit on 16 December (see EUROPE 12855/2), the Commission proposed on Tuesday 21 December a delegated Regulation on the validity period of the EU Digital COVID Certificate, which it decided to set at nine months (270 days) after the first full vaccination schedule.
This Regulation, which could come into force on 1 February, if Member States do not oppose it, means that the certificate of people who have not had an additional vaccine nine months after their second dose (or after the first and only dose with the Johnson&Johnson vaccine) will no longer be valid and can no longer be presented for travel in the EU. It may also no longer be valid after this period at national level, if Member States lay down provisions to that effect. The proposal invites them to align themselves with nine months.
The Commission had already proposed a validity of nine months (six months and three additional months, the time to organise the public booster campaign) in its recommendation of 25 November (see EUROPE 12840/1).
This recommendation is broader in scope, as it also covers changes to the ECDC’s mapping, but has not yet been approved by EU ambassadors. The delegated Regulation does not, however, prescribe anything about the period of validity of the certificates after the additional dose.
On 21 December, the Commission also accompanied its draft delegated Regulation with a technical act to allow the encoding of doses in the certificate.
To date, 807 million certificates have been issued in the EU, the Commission says, and 60 countries and territories across five continents have adopted the same system.
New equivalence decisions
On 21 December, the Commission adopted new equivalence decisions of certificates for Montenegro, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay. Certificates issued by these countries will be recognised as equivalent to those of the EU and vice versa.
Link to the delegated Regulation: https://bit.ly/3H1fUD7 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)