7
Jul
2021
Watch
State of play of the implementation of the EU Digital COVID Certificate regulations (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner Reynders, it took exactly three months and 15 days for the European Union to launch the European COVID-19 certificate and for us to regain our freedom of movement between Member States. Only three and a half months for our European health pass to come into effect. Three and a half months during which Parliament and the Member States worked together to find an agreement on how to implement this certificate. Three and a half months have allowed the European Union to develop a digital portal interconnected with national systems, through which each Member State can verify the authenticity of a vaccination certificate, a negative PCR test or a certificate of recovery issued by any other European country. I would particularly like to congratulate our rapporteur, Jeroen Lenaers, on his exemplary work. Since its entry into force on 1 July, 250 million citizens have already downloaded the certificate, i.e. more than one in two European citizens. Here, the European Union has been extremely effective in enabling each of us to travel this summer and thus relaunch the tourism sector – 50% of world tourism, it should be recalled, taking place in European countries. So yes, this European health pass is a real success. It is now the responsibility of each Member State to adapt its vaccination strategy to further vaccinate and to ensure that the resumption of contamination, which is still relatively localised and due to the emergence of new variants, does not become widespread.