European travelers can expect to travel beginning in June with the help of the European Union’s freshly approved COVID-19 immunity passports. However, a deeper look reveals the passports have been in the works since at least 2019.
On Thursday, the European Union announced plans to move forward to the next phase of rolling out their version of controversial “immunity passports” across Europe. Representatives of the EU member states debated the roll out of the certificate on Wednesday and announced the results on Thursday morning. The vote was 540 yes, 119 no, and 31 abstentions. The implementation of the “EU Covid-19 certificate” is expected to happen in early June.
The EU COVID-19 certificate will be a digital and/or paper certificate with a QR code which allows anyone who has been fully vaccinated, has proof of a negative COVID-19 test, or has recovered from COVID-19, to travel across the European Union. So although these are often referred to as “immunity” passports, they do not necessarily represent immunity or even vaccine status since individuals can also use a negative COVID-19 test to receive one.
During Wednesday’s debate Members of Parliament called for setting a deadline for the program, ultimately voting that the system should not be in place longer than 12 months. They also voted in favor of changing the name from the Digital Green Certificate to the EU COVID-19 certificate.
Italian MEP Piernicola Pedicini warned against rushing the approval process of the certificates, stating “Haste is not a wise counsel.” He also raised concerns about the committee stage for the certificate legislation being skipped.
The next step of implementing the certificate involves negotiations between the European Parliament and the leaders of the 27 EU member states about how each nation will initiate the certificate system. Each member state must set up infrastructure to issue, verify, and store the certificates’ data. By June the so-called “EU gateway” will open up allowing member states to join the program.
Free Movement?
During the lead-up to the vote, MEPs argued that the certificate should not be used as a tool for discrimination. Rather, they argued, the certificate should be a tool for “facilitating freedom of movement”. Before Wednesday’s vote, Stella Kyriakides EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, stated that the certificate is “crucial to assist the Member States in the fight against the pandemic while allowing citizens to exercise their free movement rights in a coordinated and safe manner.”
However, the idea that the EU COVID-19 certificate grants people their right to move about freely is ridiculous at best, and horrifying at worst. The government – any government – does not grant the people their rights. Additionally, this certificate and similar vaccine passport schemes are explicitly about discriminating against certain people. Specifically, those who have yet to be or choose not to be vaccinated.
On Thursday the European Parliament noted that “holders of an EU COVID-19 certificate should not be subject to additional travel restrictions, such as quarantine, self-isolation or testing”. They go on to say that “to avoid discrimination against those not vaccinated and for economic reasons, EU countries should ‘ensure universal, accessible, timely and free of charge testing’”.
Once again, issuing a passport or certificate that only allows those who have met a specific medical condition the right to travel is discrimination. Of course, in the eyes of the EU making the tests free and readily available is their version of not discriminating. Those of you who don’t want to be vaccinated at all are not even given consideration.
Ciarán McCollum, a Belfast-based Northern Irish barrister, says the EU is being dishonest when it promises that the certificates will not be used to discriminate or as travel documents. McCollum says the new legislation would create a situation where guards at the open borders of the EU member states have to inspect individuals for certificates.
“As it’s put in Article 3(1), there will be “cross-border verification”, performed by the member state “authorities” mentioned in Article 9(2). In the absence of such checks, the certificates would be useless and the “universal framework” would not exist,” he wrote for the EU Observer. “With vaccinated Europeans travellers separated from non-vaccinated, infected from non-infected, and immune from non-immune—the DGC, if applied, would be a guarantee of discrimination within the EU.”
McCollum also notes that the Lisbon Court of Appeal and Administrative Court of Vienna have held that PCR testing is unreliable and cannot be relied on for determining infection. He argues this means the certificates “are useless as proof of whether you are infected, or can or cannot spread the virus.”
Foreknowledge and The Great Reset
As TLAV has reported since July 2020, the push for vaccine passports is all part of the larger push for a “Great Reset” and the transformation of every industry on the planet. These passport schemes are only going to increase in the coming months.