The EU launched a digital vaccination certificate on Thursday, which is intended to make travel easier in the corona pandemic. The EU member states have promised to waive quarantine and test obligations for owners when entering the country, but they can, for example, pull an "emergency brake" and impose restrictions and requirements again if new virus variants appear. Germany has just declared Portugal a virus variant area. Anyone who comes back from there has to be in quarantine for 14 days with or without a certificate. It should be possible to check the authenticity of the digital evidence via an electronic EU platform. Current test results and information about a coronavirus disease can also be saved on them.
However, airlines had warned in advance against longer waiting times at check-in due to the necessary controls and different systems in the EU countries.
For the time being, only 21 of the 27 member states are connected to the platform.
Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden and Hungary are still missing.
The non-EU countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are included.
The vaccination certificate consists of a QR code that can be scanned.
A digital signature should make it forgery-proof.
The proof of vaccination can be saved on mobile devices, for example in the Corona app, or shown in printed form.
The digital vaccination certificate is not mandatory.
Corona vaccinations can still be proven by a conventional vaccination certificate.
In Germany, the digital certificate has been issued routinely for vaccinations since mid-June. People who were previously vaccinated can subsequently have the digital proof issued free of charge, for example in pharmacies. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, around 40 million certificates have been issued in Germany so far.