[GTranslate]BRUSSELS – The ‘Covid passport’ is coming in Europe: a digital document “to help freedom of movement in the EU” as said by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at a press conference in Brussels today. The certificate, which was presented today by the European Commission and which will be ready before the summer, will serve to demonstrate whether the person has been vaccinated, is negative for the test or whether it is cured from Covid-19 and has antibodies. It will be free, written in two languages (that of the Member State and English) and will be in digital or paper form: in both cases, it will contain a QR code containing the necessary information, including a digital signature to ensure its authenticity.
But who will release it? It will be done by the health authorities of the various states, such as hospitals or local health authorities (Asl) in the case of Italy, and the digital version can be saved on the mobile phone.
In any case, being vaccinated “will not be a precondition for travel – underlines the European Commission – because all citizens have the fundamental right of freedom of movement and this applies regardless of whether a person is vaccinated or not”. On the contrary: according to the Commission itself, the Covid passport “will make it easier to exercise the right” to move from one Member State to another, overcoming the problem linked to the fact that many States continue not to recognize the results of tests conducted in other EU countries .
The certificate, finally assures the Commission, will be “a temporary tool: when the World Health Organization decrees the end of the pandemic, it will no longer be needed”, although “it will be possible to reactivate it in the event of another pandemic in the future”. We hope not.