A health worker prepares a dose of the vaccine at a health center in Valencia at the end of January.Monica Torres
The second summit of the European Union on the covid-19 pandemic since the beginning of the year will end this Thursday with an extension of the restrictions on all trips considered non-essential, both from one EU country to another and those from a third country .
The slow rate of vaccination and the fear of new variants of the virus force the 27 members of the Union to restrict cross-border travel, and is multiplying friction due to mistrust between them.
The 27 will also discuss the demand of the southern partners, such as Spain or Greece, to introduce a "vaccination certificate" to reactivate tourist routes.
At the moment, Germany and France refuse to approve it and prefer to wait for the vaccination rate to advance significantly before considering this type of health passport.
Since last February 1, the EU recommends the isolation of areas with more than 500 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants, and preventive measures, such as prior testing or quarantine, for areas with more than 150 cases.
Those criteria have led to significant limitations on movement within the EU, and this Thursday's summit advocates maintaining strict control of movement.
"The epidemiological situation continues to be serious and the new variants pose an additional challenge," says the draft of the declaration that a European Council hopes to approve this Thursday, which, like that of January, must be held by videoconference between the leaders of the 27 countries of the Union.
The text adds that "for the moment, non-essential travel needs to be restricted."
They reaffirm their intention to maintain strong restrictions while redoubling efforts to accelerate the delivery of vaccines.
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The summit was convened by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, at a delicate moment in the epidemic in Europe due to the appearance of new variants of the virus and the low level of vaccination achieved so far.
The lack of immunization is compounded by the lack of control in the surveillance of the spread of some variants that are increasingly dominant and whose presence causes mistrust among community partners.
Almost all of Europe is above the limit of 150 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and only some parts of Germany, Finland, Romania or Greece have managed to drop below 50 cases.
Germany, France, Spain, Portugal or Belgium, among other countries, have introduced border controls to try to contain the infections.
In some cases, such as Belgium, the prohibition to enter and leave the country is practically general, except in the case of trips considered essential.
The European Commission has requested explanations this week in writing from six countries (Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Hungary, Finland and Denmark) considering that they impose disproportionate restrictions that may affect free movement, especially of goods, and damage the internal market .
Accelerate vaccination
But the Commission is practically defenseless in the face of border obstacles, and the lack of tracking of the new variants makes it difficult to regain normalcy.
The European Commission recommends that at least 5% of positive tests be sequenced, and preferably up to 10%, to screen for virus variants.
But according to the latest data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) only one EU country, Denmark, reaches 10%.
Without sequencing and with a very low vaccination rate, the return of the continent to normality seems still a long way off.
"Our priority continues to be to accelerate vaccination throughout Europe," says Michel in the letter of convocation of the summit addressed to the 27 governments of the Union.
On average, only 2.3% of the EU population have received both doses of any of the vaccines licensed so far (BioNTech and Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca), according to ECDC data.
Malta, with 4.5%, leads a classification in which Spain is in fourth place with 3.1%.
The European figures are far from those of the US, which has already vaccinated 6% of the population with two doses and administers 1.5 million vaccines daily, double that of the EU (778,000), according to data compiled by the Bloomberg agency.
The UK, which has chosen to prioritize the first dose, has already administered a puncture to 26.8% of the population, but only 1% have received both, according to figures from Bloomberg.
The European governments initially attributed the slowness of the campaigns to the supposed delay of the European Medicines Agency in authorizing the vaccines.
And then to the lack of supply guarantees in the reserve contracts signed by the European Commission with pharmaceutical companies.
But as the production and supply chain normalizes, national authorities in the most backward countries face their own responsibility for the slow take-off of the campaigns.
"At some point in the next few weeks, we will have an avalanche of doses and then the question will become whether there is the capacity to distribute them quickly," predicts a European source.
The Commission estimates that some 300 million doses will be received during the second quarter, which added to the 100 million in the first quarter would already cover about 200 million inhabitants (for a population of 450 million).
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and his counterparts from Poland, Belgium, Denmark and Lithuania, have written to Michel on the eve of the summit to demand a joint effort "to enhance" the vaccine production capacity in Europe.
The five heads of government advocate granting the necessary aid to European manufacturers "in case unexpected problems arise in the production process" and for adapting existing factories and building new ones.
The logistical difficulties of an unprecedented immunization campaign are compounded by the distrust of the population in some Member States.
The result of all the manufacturing, distribution and public perception difficulties is that the vaccination rate is below the European average (2.3%) in 10 EU countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia), according to ECDC data.
The slow immunization does not allow, according to community sources, to address the debate about the so-called passports or vaccination certificates that would allow travel without undergoing tests or quarantines.
"It is a premature debate," these sources rule out, despite the fact that countries like Greece or Spain insist on the convenience of developing these documents as soon as possible.
"It is understandable that tourist countries do not want to risk another dead season this year, but there are still too many unknowns to introduce a certificate," these sources conclude.
Spain defends the need to "define the parameters of the certificate in anticipation that the situation improves even though its effects have not yet materialized", according to official Spanish sources.
The same sources underline that "the objective of the certificate is not to prevent anyone from passing, but quite the opposite, to facilitate mobility."
The intention of the EU is that the certificate, if it is applied, coexists with alternative systems that pass the way, such as the presentation of negative tests.
Countries where there are significant groups of resistance to vaccination, such as Germany or France, fear that the so-called passport is counterproductive at the moment, because it could give the impression that it is a way to force people to immunize themselves.
Brussels also wants to resolve some doubts first, such as the ability to transmit the virus of vaccinated people or the resistance of the antidote to new variants.
The EU institutions also want to coordinate the design of the passport with the World Health Organization so that the future safe-conduct is usable inside and outside the EU.
But the countries most dependent on tourism, such as Greece or Cyprus, have begun to negotiate their own theoretically safe corridors.
Athens and Nicosia reached an agreement with Israel at the beginning of the month to allow the visit of already vaccinated Israeli citizens, taking advantage of the fact that the country has the highest vaccination rate in the world (34.7% of the population has received both doses) .
The opening is potentially risky because the bulk of the population in Greece and Cyprus is still not vaccinated (just over 2.5% have received the two punctures).
Other countries, such as Denmark, have announced that they will introduce a passport to facilitate the departure abroad of their citizenship.
The European Council, for the time being, will agree this Thursday to continue technical work on the standardization of a certificate that the most tourist countries are eager to release.