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As vaccine rollout gathers pace across Europe and lockdown
restrictions are eased, the European Commission is pushing to
introduce a 'Digital Green Certificate' (DGC) to facilitate
international travel to boost tourism in the European Union.
However, several political, legal, and security hurdles to the
implementation of a DGC remain.
The introduction of an EU-wide DGC ahead of the tourist
season in June is increasingly likely as member states (MSs) seek
to revive non-essential travel from overseas.
Several national solutions to the challenge of resuming
cross-border travel have emerged in recent weeks across the EU. In
France, national authorities plan to buttress the TousAntiCovid
contact tracing app with verified vaccination or coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus test results to enable international
travel. Germany, Estonia, and Denmark are also developing their own
national solutions.
However, a mosaic of national systems that are not sublated into
an EU-wide solution risks undermining the resumption of
international travel within the EU. To address this issue, the
European Commission in May launched a pilot test in partnership
with Deutsche Telekom, SAP, and five MSs. The proposed system would
connect national databases to an EU gateway, allowing holders of
national vaccination certificates, COVID-19 test certificates, or
proof of recovery from COVID-19 to obtain a DGC. The DGC
certificates would then serve as a 'passport', allowing its holders
to travel freely within the EU as well as Norway, Switzerland,
Iceland, and Liechtenstein, which are likely to be included in the
scheme. The DGC is especially favoured by EU MSs that rely on
tourism for revenues such as Spain, where tourism accounts for
around 12% of GDP. Such countries are pushing for the launch of DGC
ahead of the tourist season in June.
The successful implementation of the DGC across the EU
risks being undermined by political challenges and low public
support.
While many countries have strongly favoured a fast-tracked
solution, other MSs such as Germany and France have voiced
scepticism over the potential for the DGC to be discriminatory
towards people who refuse vaccination for health or other reasons.
One potential solution to the question of discrimination is the
provision of universal and free-of-charge COVID-19 testing,
something which the European Parliament has advocated as a
precondition for the DGC.
The caution of some MSs is reflected in, and compounded by, an
incipient fault line between the Council of the European Union and
the European Parliament, which adopted formal positions on the DGC
on 14 April and 28 April, respectively. The Council, for example,
maintains that lifting travel restrictions must remain the
prerogative of national governments, while the European Parliament
states that DGC holders ought to enjoy exemption.
The success of the DGC would also be contingent on public
support and high download rates for national apps connected to the
EU gateway. In Germany, only 41% of respondents backed the national
scheme, a result likely driven by privacy concerns, and in France,
only one in five people downloaded the TousAntiCovid app. If such a
trend persists, it would risk rendering the DGC obsolete.
Different interpretations of DGC criteria and additional
requirements at the national level risk impeding a uniform
application of the proposed regime.
Another political obstacle concerns the exact criteria
requirements to obtain a DGC, notably which vaccines should qualify
for certification. Greece currently allows tourists who have
received vaccines not yet approved by the European Medicines Agency
(EMA), including Russia's Sputnik V and China's Sinopharm, to enter
the country without the need to self-isolate. Spain, however, will
wait for an EU-wide consensus to emerge before it welcomes non-EU
tourists. Hungary is in a unique position within the EU as it is
the only MS to authorise and administer the Russian and Chinese
vaccines without EMA approval. This has created an incentive for
the Hungarian government to seek supplemental bilateral deals for
international travel unless DGC requirements also include said
vaccines.
Divergent epidemiological developments and inoculation rates
across the EU will therefore increase the risk of supplementary
requirements at the national level, or different interpretations of
the DGC to accommodate unique national situations and economic
interests, thereby hampering the uniform application of the measure
and creating regulatory confusion for travellers.
The effective implementation of an EU-wide DGC would
require close coordination with the United Kingdom to reflect the
special post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland.
The effectiveness of the DGC will depend on border checks to
authenticate certificates. Such a provision would potentially
entail introducing a physical border infrastructure between Ireland
and Northern Ireland, a prospect with significant ramifications for
political stability and civil unrest in this part of the UK. When a
similar proposal was mulled in January to stem COVID-19 vaccine
exports from the EU to the UK, the backlash from London, Belfast,
and Dublin forced the Commission to immediately backtrack.
The timing of any proposed introduction of border infrastructure
for the DGC would also be key, given that high levels of violent
protests in Northern Ireland typically occur in June and July. Any
solution, therefore, is likely to require close engagement with the
UK on Northern Ireland and possibly regulatory equivalence
regarding the validity of vaccine passports.
Posted 17 May 2021 by Dijedon Imeri, Senior Analyst, Country Risk, S&P Global Market Intelligence