Schengen Visa is to be available soon for third-country nationals including, the UK and the USA.
This is proposed to be made possible through a “Covid-19 EU travel certificate”. This certificate is to be launched by the end of June. Until this new certificate is operational, member states should accept the traveler’s home country’s certificate (if the authenticity of the certificate is standard). The European Commission presented a proposal to create a Digital Green Certificate to facilitate the safe free movement of citizens within the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic on 17 March 2021,
The EU Commission is moving ahead to allow fully vaccinated people to enter the EU countries for nonessential travel. As per the latest press proposal of the EU commission, countries with a good epidemiological situation and all other people who have received a dose of vaccine (with one of the vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The European Commission presented a proposal to create a Digital Green Certificate to facilitate the safe free movement of citizens in the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital Green Certificates will be valid in all EU Member States.
On 30 June 2020, the Council adopted a recommendation on the gradual lifting of temporary restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU. The recommendation includes an initial list of countries for which the Member States should initiate the lifting of travel restrictions at the external borders. The list is reviewed every two weeks and updated if necessary.
US travelers will also be able to visit the EU block soon from summer this year. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has revealed that fully vaccinated US travelers will be able to visit the European Union this summer after more than one year of the ban on non-essential travel.
Key features of the Green Travel Certificate
The certificate will show the name, date of birth, date of issuance, relevant information about vaccine/ test/recovery, and a unique identifier, and furthermore that the holder has been vaccinated against COVID-19. The key features of the certificate will be as under:
- valid in all EU countries
- safe and secure for all users
- availability in digital and/or paper format
- through app possibility with QR code
- no cost for the certificate, free of charge availability
- in national language and English
How will the certificate look like?
Paper based version:
Digital version:
National authorities are in charge of issuing the certificate. It could, for example, be issued by hospitals, test centers, health authorities.
List of “Safe Third Countries”
From 6 May 2021, Member States (the Schengen associated countries Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland also participate in the recommendation) should gradually lift the travel restrictions at the external borders for persons residing in the following third countries:
- Australia
- Israel
- New Zeland
- Rwanda
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Thailand
- China (Hong Kong and Macao) subject to confirmation of reciprocity
- For the purposes of the recommendation, persons resident in Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City should be considered as persons resident in the EU.
A Member State should not decide to lift travel restrictions for non-listed third countries before a coordinated decision has been taken.
Criteria for safe list
The criteria for determining the third countries from which the current travel restriction should be lifted were updated on 2 February 2021. They cover the epidemiological situation and the overall response to COVID-19 as well as the reliability of information and sources of available data. Reciprocity should also be taken into account on a case-by-case basis.
On 3 May 2021, the Commission presented a proposal to further relax the current restrictions on non-essential travel. The proposal increases the threshold of cumulative cases of COVID-19 for the countries included in the list and allows non-essential travel by vaccinated people. At the same time, it introduces an “emergency brake” mechanism to limit the entry into the EU of variants of concern. The proposal is currently under discussion in the Council.
EU’s Re-Open Tool
EU has also introduced a re-open tool to provide in detail information from each member state. This tool provides an overview of the health situation in European countries, based on data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The portal could be reached here online and also through an app.
-Files from Umer Rasib, consilium.europa.eu and visa-guru.com