EU Commissioner Didier Reynders has said that, following a trial this summer, the European Union’s coronavirus passport will be ready for use by the end of June, 2021.
For several months, European leaders have been looking into ways to facilitate safe international travel within the EU during coronavirus, and the EU Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas announced only last month that the digital vaccination certificate should be ready in time for the summer rush.
Reynders has now said the certificate will be available either in digital or physical form and will be free for residents in all member states in order to temporarily allow for travel within the Union. Once the World Health Organisation declares the pandemic over, the certificate will no longer be required for travel.
He has also said that there will be no central database for the certificate and that the document won’t include as much (personal) information as the internationally recognised vaccination booklet. The EU Parliament is yet to approve the coronavirus passport proposal but has already announced that the approval process will be fast-tracked.
The Dutch government has been hesitant to support the implementation of a so-called COVID passport, and Dutch members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs continue to voice their concerns about the plan, specifically the costs of testing and discrimination against those who are unvaccinated.
In spite of this, however, recent research carried out by the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) found that approximately 70 percent of people in the Netherlands support the idea of a coronavirus passport to provide those who have been vaccinated against coronavirus or have recently tested negative with access to specific events or activities.