Filenews 16 February 2021
The official position of the Commission and President Von Der Leyen that we as the EU cannot discriminate by giving travel facilities to vaccinated people without all citizens having access to vaccines," Commission Chief Representative Eric Mamer said today at the editors' daily briefing in Brussels.
Eric Mamer made it clear once again that another issue is the existence and technical characteristics of the certificate and another issue is travel facilities and any other rights.
In particular, the Commission's Chief Representative said: "we must not confuse the two issues, we must not confuse them. There are technical studies carried out over a period of time indeed, which examine the technical dimension of a vaccination certificate that could be used on a large scale and the interoperability of the different systems and this is done in cooperation with the WHO. But there is also a second political debate that is taking place and looking at the same certificates and the rights that could flow from them for some, the rights they will give to citizens, and we have always said that there is one element that the Member States must keep in mind during this debate, that there should be access to vaccines for all citizens in order to avoid discrimination against those who do not have access to vaccination. In addition, there are other technical issues that we have mentioned, e.g. how such a system will work, how there will be full mutual recognition, e.g. that the person presenting the certificate is indeed the one who was vaccinated. And as far as rights are concerned, likewise, we must avoid giving away rights by discriminating."
It is recalled that yesterday the ECDC, the European Centre for Disease Control, clearly opposed travel facilities for vaccinated people. In a written communication it states: ECDC supports "a vaccine certificate for COVID-19 that will document whether someone has received the vaccine, the number of doses and the type of vaccine administered, for medical purposes".
"This is not the same as a vaccine passport that would allow international travellers to be exempted from compliance with travel risk reduction measures and for which the ECDC considers that there is insufficient evidence of the effectiveness of vaccination in reducing transmission to exempt travellers with proof of quarantine vaccination and/or testing," it states.
"Travel measures may complement Community measures (non-pharmaceutical interventions, testing, contact detection, case isolation and isolation of their contacts).
"Non-essential travel should be avoided," the agency recommends.
Similarly, Commissioner Gentiloni described the Commission's position on the issue after the Eurogroup. The debate on travel facilities with a vaccination certificate is premature and no discrimination can be introduced on citizens before vaccines become available to all, Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni said yesterday after the conclusion of the Eurogroup meeting.
In particular, in relation to the request by some states for travel facilities for vaccinated people with a view to heating up tourism, Commissioner Gentiloni replied that the debate on the certificate "is at an early stage", explaining that "at the moment it concerns only health services - it certifies that someone has been vaccinated", but as he said, "cannot be linked to rights", until "vaccination is guaranteed for all citizens". He made it clear that "we cannot discriminate if vaccination is not possible for everyone". With the Commissioner's record, he stated that Eurogroup President Pascal Donahue also agreed
Source: Eyenews/CYP
