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Jens Spahn (CDU) carefully avoided the word “vaccination pass”.
As a precaution, on the Friday before the federal press conference, the Federal Minister of Health only spoke of the “digital vaccination certificate”.
What is meant is a forgery-proof vaccination status documentation on the smartphone, read in via barcode and verifiable via the app.
This should now actually be available to all corona vaccinated persons in Germany as early as the summer - "within plus or minus twelve weeks," as Spahn announced.
He thus confirmed - albeit with noticeable hesitation - the three-month timeframe previously mentioned by Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU).
The day before Spahn's appearance, Merkel had discussed with the remaining 26 EU heads of government at a video summit what this vaccination certificate would look like and what could be done with it.
The fact that the digital proof should in principle come across the EU has been tapped since January 21.
At that time, the EU Council decided to launch an interoperable, standardized vaccination certificate that can be operated and viewed using various systems.
But it is still disputed what consequences this has as to whether the corona vaccination certificate - because it is nothing else - could serve as a requirement for boarding airplanes or entering certain countries, or even for going to concerts and restaurants .
The EU members who are dependent on tourism, including Austria and Greece, had fueled the debate in order to at least save their companies the summer vacation business.
In some places, facts have even been created.
Sweden and Denmark want to introduce the proof by June 1st.
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At the beginning of this week, the Berlin Corona Cabinet also took the first step and tackled the project.
"We are now in the emergency award procedure," said Spahn, after all, the matter must "go quickly".
Technology companies should work out an offer for a system of apps and software so that doctors' practices or vaccination centers can produce certificates that can be downloaded to the cell phone, but also printed out.
If necessary, for example “for medical purposes”, as it is called by the Ministry of Health, the proof should then be able to be retrieved and verified via the app.
When asked what role the digital passport could play with regard to, for example, freedom of travel, the Federal Minister of Health was eloquent around a specific statement.
Every vaccinated person is entitled to document the vaccination anyway, "in future it will also be digital," says Spahn.
“But the evidence does not automatically mean that something will change for the vaccinated person.” It is the task of the Bundestag to discuss this question.
This is exactly what will probably happen with some severity in the next few weeks and months.
After all, the question of whether vaccinated people should have privileges and when is the right time to grant them is highly controversial.
Some parliamentary groups are therefore even warning against tackling the issue at all now.
"As long as there are no reliable data on whether a vaccination is more or less reliable in reducing the infectiousness of people, a vaccination card can only raise false hopes," said the health policy spokesman for the left-wing parliamentary group, Achim Kessler, WELT.
Until a really large part of the population has been vaccinated, he considers unequal treatment to be extremely difficult.
"The potential for splitting a vaccination card" is enormous.
"Don't waste any more time"
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The Greens are also stepping on the brakes.
For MEP Kordula Schulz-Asche, the question of a European vaccination pass and the associated different treatment of vaccinated people is “not conclusive” until reliable data on immunity and possible further transmission of the virus by vaccinated people are available.
The reporter for infection control of the Green parliamentary group urgently warns the federal government against arousing false expectations.
However, the technical preparatory work for a vaccination card according to European specifications should start, which also corresponds to data protection - "so that no more time is lost in the event of a clear data situation".
The technology industry association Bitkom sees the time horizon of three months that IT companies have been given a challenge.
Ultimately, the European certificate must integrate national solutions and make them “interoperable”, ie they can be networked with one another.
Three months are “ambitious” for this, says Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder.
One of the challenges will be to design the technical infrastructure in such a way that the bar codes can also be read and verified in paper format.
Because the Federal Ministry of Health wants doctors' practices and test centers to be able to print out the codes generated after a vaccination so that those who have been vaccinated can enter them into their smartphones at home.
Incidentally, this will only be possible once;
permanent storage in a central system is not intended.
The Federal Ministry of Health has not yet provided any information on what users can do in the event of the loss of a smartphone, a device change or accidental deletion of data.
EU wants to introduce corona vaccination pass by summer
In three months, Europe should get a uniform vaccination certificate.
The EU summit agreed on this.
The Chancellor agreed, but pointed out a few hurdles.
Whether the passport is linked to freedom of travel is also controversial in the EU.
Source: WORLD / Alina Quast
The certificate should contain encrypted personal information such as name, date of birth or postcode, and possibly information about the vaccination, such as the batch number of the vaccine and the date of the vaccination.
According to Bitkom, data protection should be guaranteed with encryption and digital signature.
The data can only be read out if you have previously been authorized as authorized, according to Bitkom managing director Rohleder.
When developing the European vaccination certificate, it must also be taken into account that it is compatible with the vaccination card planned for 2022 within the electronic patient file and that it enables data to be compared.
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The travel industry, which has been shaken by Corona, has high hopes for the technology.
Tui boss Friedrich Joussen even dared to make an optimistic announcement with a view to rapid tests and the European vaccination card: "Travel in Europe will be possible in the summer of 2021 - safely and responsibly." With an EU-wide proof, politics could now provide an important basis for manage to travel in summer.
And as long as not everyone has been vaccinated, the rapid tests remain as a “second component”.
But the SPD is already dampening this confidence: "A European vaccination certificate is not a free ticket with privileges for individuals," said the health policy spokeswoman for the Bundestag parliamentary group Sabine Dittmar.
And the Union parliamentary group also emphasizes that the principle of voluntariness must be granted: “We have to make sure that there should be no sanctions for non-vaccinated people,” says Vice-parliamentary group leader Katja Leikert (CDU).
However, it is necessary to make vaccination certificates user-friendly on a European app.
"That can be an important step towards the normalcy of our population in Europe."