The European Commission has unveiled a proposal that would allow people who
have taken a full course of vaccination against Covid to enter European
Union member states for non-essential travel.
Entry would be open to anyone who had received
the last recommended dose of an EU-authorised vaccine at least 14 days prior to
arrival with the potential for this to be extended to vaccines having completed
the WHO emergency use listing process.
In
addition, the Commission said that if member states decide to waive the
requirements to present a negative PCR test and/or to undergo quarantine for
vaccinated persons on their territory, they should also waive such requirements
for vacccinated travellers from outside the EU.
The Commssion said it also recognised the
emergence of coronavirus variants of concern and called for “continued vigilance”. It has proposed a new EU-wide ‘emergency brake' mechanism, which would allow member
states to act quickly and temporarily limit to a strict minimum all travel from
affected countries for the time needed to put in place appropriate sanitary
measures.
Proof of vaccination would need
to be facilitated by the proposed Digital Green Certificate once it becomes
operational but member sates could accept certificates from non-EU countries
based on national law, taking into account the ability to verify the
authenticity, validity and integrity of the certificate and whether it contains
all relevant data.
Currently, entry into the EU is permitted for limited essential travel, which does not include general business travel. The bloc also permits entry from seven countries
with a low prevalence of Covid but the Commission proposes to amend
the current criteria to take into account the mounting evidence of the positive
impact of vaccination campaign, increasing the threshold of 14-day cumulative Covid-19
case notification rate from 25 to 100. The current EU average is over 420. The list would be reviewed every two weeks.
The proposal will be discussed at a meeting today by the EU Council with EU Ambassadors considering it on 5 May. If adopted,
it will be for EU member states to implement the measures.
Commenting on the announcement, Tim Alderslade, CEO of Airlines UK, the industry body representing UK-registered carriers, said: “The EU should be congratulated for recognising that the success of the vaccine rollout – coupled with sensible vigilance around variants – is a game-changer that can and should enable a risk-based and proportionate system of international travel to resume.
"It is frustrating that the UK has not gone down the same road, with Ministers here still reluctant to acknowledge that we can be more ambitious with our own plans, taking advantage of one of the most impressive vaccination programmes in the world, alongside quicker, cheaper testing and our globally renowned genomic sequencing capability. It’s about getting the risk balance right and we don’t believe the UK has done that yet.”