EU Extends Digital COVID Certificate Regulation Until June 2023

On June 23, following the European Commission’s proposal, the European Parliament reached an agreement on the extension of the European Union Digital COVID Certificate for another year until June 30, 2023; the agreement was reached by a vote of 453 for, 119 against and 19 abstentions. The extension still needs to be formally adopted by the Council of the EU.

It will then enter into force on the day of its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. The extension will allow EU citizens and third-country nationals to continue using their current certificates to travel across the EU until June 30, 2023. One of the European Parliament officials said “Due to the unpredictable evolution of the virus, the Parliament has extended the application of the Digital COVID Certificate for a year to ensure citizens have the right to free movement within the EU.” On the other hand, the renewal of the COVID Certificate Regulation means people who are not vaccinated by the CCP virus vaccines won’t be able to travel freely within EU countries at least for another year.

European Parliament and the Council adopted the Regulation on the EU Digital COVID Certificate on June 14, 2021. It applied from July 1, 2021, and was set to expire on 30 June 2022. Until now, the EU has issued over 1.8 billion Digital COVID Certificates. The COVID Certificate Regulation was originally adopted to facilitate “safe travel” between EU countries; but it quickly evolved into “health” or Covid passes that would serve to restrict citizens’ freedom of moving and travel, the “Regulation” has received overwhelmingly negative responses from the public.

Earlier this year, from February 3 to April 8, a public consultation project on the subject was launched by the European Commission and received over 385,000 responses opposing the extension of the COVID Certificate Regulation. By the end of 2022, the European Commission is expected to re-evaluate the epidemic situation to decide whether the “Regulations” could be shortened as soon as the epidemiological situation allows.