April 29th 2021 the European Parliament released a vote showing that the EU’s “digital green certificate” proposal had been given a negotiating mandate. Next, the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament will begin negotiations on this. The negotiations may focus on issues such as the principle of non-discrimination, data protection, accessibility and affordability of new coronavirus testing.
The “Digital Green Certificate”, formally presented by the European Commission on 17 March this year, aims to provide security for the resumption of the free movement of people within the EU this summer. According to the technical specifications agreed by EU member states on the 22nd of this month, the “digital green certificate” will contain data on Coronavirus vaccination, Covid-19 detection and recovery of people infected with Coronavirus, the data will be encoded using QR code.
In addition, the Commission will establish a unified technical channel at the EU level, start trial operation in May and open access to member states in June. The move will open up countries’ “digital green certificate” systems so that data can be read and validated across the EU.
While the European Commission wants the “digital green certificate” to be fully available in the EU in June, the eu tripartite negotiating process may pose a risk of overdue. The Commission also noted that failure to make timely progress at the EU legislative level could lead to confusion among countries over the difficulty of mutual recognition of “digital green certificates”.
