The European Union has reached an agreement on Covid certificates designed to open up tourism across the bloc.
The EU’s digital Covid pass is expected to launch on 1 July and will be a QR code on a smartphone or paper. It will provide border control information on a visitor's status drawn from records in their home EU country. The certificate would indicate if a person has received a vaccine, had a recent negative test or has immunity based on recovery.
In Finland, the EU’s Covid pass will appear in the online health record system Omakanta, known in English as "My Kanta" (siirryt toiseen palveluun). But before this happens, every resident will receive a domestic Covid certificate (siirryt toiseen palveluun) certifying that the individual has received a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Despite the European-wide Covid pass rollout, EU lawmakers agreed that it would be left to member states to decide whether to demand negative tests results or impose quarantine on travellers. While the EU parliament had wanted Covid passes to remove the need for quarantine, the decision was left to states owing to the rise of coronavirus variants.
