The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and that of the European Council, Charles Michel, this Thursday OLIVIER HOSLET / POOL / EFE
The European Union accelerates the step for the creation of a "health passport" to normalize travel from summer.
Faced with pressure from southern partners, especially Spain and Greece, the Twenty-seven have agreed at the virtual summit this Thursday to start working on the design of a digital certificate that will indicate whether their carrier has been vaccinated, has antibodies or has Tested negative for covid-19 recently.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has warned that countries "will have to work quickly" if they want to have it ready for the summer, since the technical development of this system requires at least three months.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that this document could also reactivate the movements with countries outside the EU.
Greece, with more vehemence, and Spain, with more patience, have managed to exert pressure with the rest of the southern countries (Italy, Cyprus and Malta) to advance in the creation of that passport.
The demands of Athens had been redoubled since last Monday, when Boris Johnson gave a perspective of a de-escalation.
And although this will be slow and gradual, that announcement was enough for the large airline and tourist groups to skyrocket in the stock market in the heat of the wave of reservations they received from the United Kingdom.
The passport proposal, however, aroused misgivings in France and Germany, who believe that it is still too early to send the signal that Europe can think about returning to normality immediately.
The statement signed by the leaders, in fact, recalls that "the epidemiological situation continues to be serious and the new variants pose new challenges."
"Non-essential travel must be restricted, but the measures must be proportional," said the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
However, community sources explain that during the meeting the “growing support” to carry out a digital certificate that some partners have even considered useful to recover social life within the countries has been revealed.
The Twenty-seven have not definitively closed the creation of the certificate, but Merkel has expressed in her press conference after the Council the consensus that this proposal has finally generated.
"Everyone agreed that we need a digital vaccination certificate," he said in Berlin.
Von der Leyen, more prudent, has not wanted to advance the decision adopted by the EU partners, but has pointed in the same direction by remembering that companies such as Google or Apple are already offering their own certificates to the market.
"It is important to have a European solution," he stressed.
However, he recalled that some issues still need to be clarified.
In the political sphere, some partners fear that this certificate could create discrimination among their citizens;
In the scientific case, it is necessary to carefully analyze if those who have been vaccinated can spread the virus, although Von der Leyen has advanced that the studies that come from Israel are encouraging.
According to sources from Moncloa, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has defended these certificates as a “valid and useful tool” and has advocated for continuing to work on their design at the community level to “prevent each country from developing its own formula, preventing situations unfair and guarantee the protection of personal data ”.
The Commission offers to coordinate the standards of the certificate and its technical aspects.
Fewer problems, Von der Leyen has said, has the content of that passport, which will be minimal: a proof that the person has been vaccinated, a negative PCR or a certificate stating that they have antibodies.
Pressure on pharmaceutical companies
The European Union also wants to avoid at all costs having to face a new escalation of infections after the brutal winter wave.
And given the difficulties exhibited by the pharmaceutical industry, and in particular by AstraZeneca, to intensify the production rates of the covid-19 vaccine, EU leaders have called for “urgently accelerating” their authorization, production and distribution ”.
In addition, they urge companies to "respect the contractual delivery deadlines" acquired with Brussels.
The European vaccination campaign started with feet of clay.
In just two months, the two doses have been injected into 2.5% of the European population, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The EU still has a way to go to immunize its most vulnerable citizens, since so far only 10.5% of those over 80 have been fully vaccinated.
With these numbers, each delay in deliveries is a blow, especially since vaccination is the key to achieving decongestion in European health systems.
The new delays from Moderna and AstraZeneca have put the 27 on guard, who are still waiting to reach cruising speed from the second quarter, when they expect to start receiving orders from Janssen and have 380 million doses at their disposal.
AstraZeneca commits in the European Parliament to comply with the vaccine delivery schedule
At their second summit by videoconference to address the health crisis, the EU heads of state and government have raised Von der Leyen a multitude of issues.
According to community sources, the leaders of the EU, including Mario Draghi for the first time, have put on the table the delays they have suffered since almost the beginning of the campaign, the difficulties to accelerate manufacturing in Europe, the need to be able to count on a predictable delivery schedule or the urgency of having greater transparency regarding the production and export of vaccines by pharmaceutical groups.
The Twenty-seven also fear that the emergence of a variant that reduces the effectiveness of vaccines could amplify all these problems.
Von der Leyen stated in the subsequent press conference that Brussels continues to try to “address bottlenecks” in both production and the supply chain, adding that, in part, these efforts have paid off, since that there are already 45 plants where the vaccine is manufactured.
The Twenty-seven have also complained about delays in deliveries, which have come to unleash a war between Brussels and Britain's AstraZeneca.
"Companies must guarantee the predictability of their vaccine production and respect the contractual delivery deadlines," argue the leaders, who also demand "transparency."
For this reason, EU leaders have asked Brussels to be tougher on the ban on exporting vaccines in the case of companies that fail to comply with their commitments.
