Mr. President,

Dear colleagues,

The adoption by the European Commission of the COVID-19 Digital Green Certificate is a “victory” in the battle to deal with the serious consequences of the pandemic in our European family. I remind you that it was the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who first proposed the adoption of a common European certificate to be used by Member States.

We are making the right move, at the right moment.

As vaccinations continue at an increasing pace, the Digital Green Certificate will safeguard one of the basic rights of citizens of our union, namely the right to travel freely and safely, while at the same time it will mitigate the consequences of restrictions imposed by individual Member States.  

The Digital Green Certificate is a particularly important development for Southern members, whose economies rely to a large extent on tourism.

Our next goal is to complete the legislative process, as soon as possible, so that the Digital Green Certificate can be deployed before the summer. Our citizens are impatient and anxious to exit the vice of this pandemic and to finally return to normality. Let us not disappoint them.