COVID-19: Coreper endorses political agreement on the EU digital COVID certificate to facilitate free movement

The Council’s Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) today gave its unanimous support to the political agreement reached with the European Parliament on 20 May on the EU digital COVID certificate.

The aim is to facilitate safe and free movement during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing proof that a person has either been vaccinated against COVID-19, received a negative test result or recovered from COVID-19.

The certificate, which will be in use by 1 July, will be available in digital and paper format, contain a QR code and be issued free of charge. It is not a precondition for exercising free movement rights and it is not a travel document.

Affordable and accessible tests

• Member states are encouraged to ensure that tests are affordable and widely available.
• 100 million euro will be available for the purchase of tests under the Emergency Support Instrument.
• Additional funding above 100 million euro could be mobilised, subject to approval by the budgetary authorities.

Travel restrictions

• It remains up to national governments to decide whether travellers with a certificate have to quarantine or get tested.
• Member states should refrain from imposing additional travel restrictions, such as testing or quarantine, unless they are proportionate and necessary to safeguard public health.
• If they decide to introduce travel restrictions, member states must inform the other member states and the Commission, if possible 48 hours in advance.
• They must clarify the reasons for such restrictions, their scope and the start date and duration.
• This information should be published 24 hours before the measures come into effect.

Phasing-in period

• For a period of six weeks, citizens whose certificates were issued before 1 July will be able to travel within the EU using those certificates.
• If a member state is not ready to issue certificates in the new format by 1 July, it will have six weeks from that date to introduce the new EU digital COVID certificate format. National certificates in other formats will be accepted during the phasing-in period.

Types of vaccine

• When a person presents a vaccination certificate for one of the vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), member states will be obliged to accept it for the purpose of facilitating freedom of movement. The proposed legislation gives member states the option to accept vaccination certificates issued for vaccines which have been authorised nationally or have completed the WHO (World Health Organisation) emergency listing process.

Types of test

• Only PCR and rapid antigen tests will be accepted as proof of a negative test result.
• Only PCR tests will be accepted as proof of recovery. Rapid antigen tests, serological tests or other validated methods might be accepted at a later stage if scientific evidence becomes available.

Data protection

• There will be no centralised EU database.
• Member states must implement robust safeguards in line with EU data protection rules