Vaccine certificates could be available within three months, says EU chief

EU vaccine records could be ready to use within three months, according to the European Commission President.

Saturday, 27th February 2021

Europe: EU vaccine records could be ready to use within three months, according to the European Commission President. Ursula von der Leyen was speaking at a press interview in Brussels Thursday, after a virtual meeting of the continent's leaders, where she said that a document saying whether citizens have been treated or not could be put to use soon. "The time frame, the three months is regarding the technical development, so we do need at least three periods for the technical development of an interoperable system on the European level. There is lots of work to do by the Council on the European level and lots of work to do technically for the post states on the state level," von der Leyen explained. The certificate will be for those who have taken their jab, a negative PCR test or who already have antibodies. And according to Guntram Wolff, Director of think-tank Bruegel, it should be relatively straightforward.

EU nations divided

While southern European countries reliant on tourism, like Greece and Spain, support certificates, northern EU nations like Germany have so far been skeptical on whether such a system would work. “First, it must actually be clearly resolved that vaccinated people are no longer infectious,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview published Thursday in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “As long as the number of these who have been vaccinated is still so much less than the number who are waiting for protection, the state should not treat the two groups differently.” "I feel that there is a lot of seldom mixing on this subject," said French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at a press organization after the summit on Thursday. "If we survive to open certain places, we cannot modify their access to vaccination, even though we would not even have opened protection to the youngest."