What is planned according to the draft text of the commission:
What information should the ID contain?
The commission speaks of a “green certificate”, which should provide information about whether a person can spread the coronavirus or at least how likely it is. In addition to information about a possible corona vaccination, the document should therefore also contain current test results and information about a corona illness.
How should it look?
The certificate is primarily intended as a digital document to be shown on mobile devices. However, the draft law also provides for the possibility of printing it out. It is therefore important that a barcode can be scanned in order to check its authenticity. The document should be issued in the respective national language and in English.
What should it be used for?
According to the commission, the certificate should make traveling easier, but in no way be a “prerequisite for exercising freedom of movement”. That is why the authority has meanwhile moved away from the original designation “green passport”. The authorities of the member states could for example waive existing test or quarantine obligations on entry based on the information in the certificate.
Which vaccines count?
Initially, the Commission can only consider vaccinations with vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). These are currently the funds from Biontech / Pfizer, Moderna, Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Hungary, for example, also inoculates the Russian vaccine Sputnik V and that of the Chinese manufacturer Sinopharm. According to the Commission, the other Member States should be free to decide whether or not to recognize certificates of vaccination with these substances.
When does the certificate come?
That can still take a while. The Commission wants to propose an EU regulation, i.e. a directly applicable EU law that would oblige the national authorities to issue the said document to their citizens on request. For this, the member states and the EU Parliament would each have to define their position and then negotiate the final legal text among themselves. Even an expedited procedure would probably take months. The commission is nevertheless optimistic that the law will be passed by the summer in order to save the tourism season.
Where could difficulties arise?
In the course of the legislative process, different interests of the individual member states or data protection concerns of the EU Parliament could delay the adoption.
The technical implementation, which the Member States take care of individually, could also cause problems. One factor here is that the necessary data has not yet been stored centrally in some countries. Medical questions are also still open. For example, it is not certain how great the risk is that people who have been vaccinated or who have recovered will spread the virus.