Inoculated with the Chinese or Russian vaccine? You still get the EU vaccine certificate

The EU decided to accept the vaccine certificate of those inoculated with the Russian or the Chinese vaccine, however, they will not be able to use it as those who have been vaccinated with a jab accepted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

As proposed by Sophie In’t Veld, a Dutch representative of the European Parliament at the discussion of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs,

“The European Union should regulate the price of PCR tests because this is the only way to avoid the discrimination of those who have not been vaccinated against the virus yet.”

Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for Justice, while talking about the system of European vaccine certificates currently under preparation, he emphasised that

“Every European citizen has the right to the Digital Green Certificate; no one can be deprived of it, even if he was inoculated with a vaccine accepted by his own member state in an emergency process, and not by the EMA.”

According to him, it is an especially important aspect when it comes to Russia’s Szputnyik V, which is still currently under the investigational procedure carried out by the Agency. It is probable that the vaccine will only be authorised once the system of the vaccine certificate will already be in use, writes hvg.hu.

Hungary among the first countries to join the vaccine certification platform

The Commissioner mentioned that the standpoint of those countries who only trust the jabs previously approved by the EMA is also understandable. To synchronise opposing opinions, the European Commission has the plan to let member states only accept those vaccines on an obligatory basis that are approved by the European Medicines Agency. Furthermore, they would have the possibility to approve others, as well.

It is important to note, however, that

the European vaccine certificate is not a vaccine passport.

In practice, it means that members states need to guarantee the same rights to everyone who was inoculated by a vaccine approved by the EMA, who has a negative PCR test or who can prove with an immunity certificate that he has been through the infection.

The Dutch representative of the Renew Europe Group raised her concerns reacting to this statement, saying that PCR tests need to be affordable to avoid any discrimination among EU citizens. This is not the case in every European member state at the moment. She called on the European Commission to work out a plan that would regulate the price of PCR tests on an EU level.

The Digital Green Card’s draft was presented by the Commission in March. Currently, they are developing the necessary IT system. Meanwhile, the European governments are discussing the proposal. If they all manage to accept and approve the proposition and the technological background is ready, the system will hopefully go live around the beginning of June, right before the beginning of the summer season.

Its specific goal is to facilitate the free movement of EU citizens on the European Union’s territory.

Read alsoIf you want to get a vaccine right away, go to Serbia?

Source: hvg.hu