Keys to understanding the Covid-19 passport of the European Union to travel this summer

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, presented this Friday the EU Covid digital certificate, also known as a health passport. An instrument for free and universal travel that seeks to facilitate mobility within the European Union (EU). The digital green certificate is a mechanism or instrument for free, universal, safe and reliable travel, which will be synthesized in a QR code. It will contain information on whether the person interested in traveling has received the complete schedule of any vaccine against covid-19, if they are immunized due to having been infected in the past or if they have a recent negative test, either PCR or antigens. The twenty-seven Member States of the European Union, although the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has assured that they are already working to be able to extend it to third countries. When does it come into force? This certificate, approved on Thursday by the European Union, after about three months of work, it will begin to be applied on July 1 throughout the community, although work is already underway to extend it to other countries.In the case of Spain, the implementation work is well advanced, both to issue certificates to the Spanish citizens, as to accept certificates from other European citizens. For the moment, the certificate will work for the next twelve months, until July 1, 2022. Who will issue it? In the case of Spain, the certificate will be issued by the Ministry of Health or by the Autonomous Communities, as detailed the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, in the same presentation ceremony. Do you collect all the vaccines?The document will include when, where and how many doses the traveler has received and will be binding on vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which for now has validated the drugs from Pfizer-BionTech, Moderna, Astrazeneca and Jannsen. , the certificate will also contain information on whether the traveler has received any other vaccine approved by a Member State but not by the EMA, as is the case in Hungary with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and the Chinese Sinopharm, although it will be the responsibility of each member country decide if you consider them valid or not. And, in the case of the unvaccinated? The document will also include the negative result of the PCR or antigen tests – depending on the requirements of the country to which you are going to travel – that have been carried out unvaccinated travelers. Evidence that Brussels is willing to finance with “an additional € 100 million”, with priority for people who regularly cross borders for work, health reasons as or educational, among others. In the case of people who have passed the virus in the previous six months, the certificate will state that they are immunized. Can countries impose a quarantine? With the promotion of this certificate at European level, the Twenty-seven will try to avoid requiring quarantines or PCR additional to travelers who enter their territories, but does not exclude imposing them if the epidemiological situation requires it and whenever they are necessary and proportionate. Does the process change if I want to travel to Spain?In the case of Spain, travelers arriving in the country had to fill out a paper or electronic form that generated a code that had to be validated at the access control at the airport and that could involve new tests or even quarantine. With this new health passport, a QR code is obtained with a form that makes the process faster and easier.In the case of Spain, tourists from the European Union will be able to travel if they do not have the digital green certificate, but the process will be as until now, with the form and control at the airport.