Vaccinated American tourists able to travel to EU this summer

 American tourists vaccinated against covid-19 will be able to travel to European Union countries this summer, said the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen, in an interview with The New York Times.

“Americans, as far as I know, use vaccines that are approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). This will allow them to travel and move freely,” the policy told the US newspaper.

 Von Der Leyen added: “Because one thing is clear: the 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines approved by the EMA.” The EMA has approved the vaccines developed by the pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, the three that are being administered in the United States.

However, the newspaper  the president of the EC did not offer an exact date or more details about this opening to American tourism for fully vaccinated people and pointed out that the last word will always be taken by individual countries. What Von Der Leyen did point out is that US was “on track” to achieve immunity in mid-June, with the vaccination of 70 percent of the adult population. The statements of European policy coincide with the preliminary phase for the European institutions to begin to negotiate the implementation of a community vaccination certificate.

The European Parliament wants to approve the final draft of this community certificate in its plenary session in June so that a pilot test of the document is launched at the beginning of that month and is fully available by the end, to help thus to promote the summer tourism campaign.

On March 17, the EC presented the digital certificate with the intention that it be ready before the summer to be able to reactivate travel by then, an objective shared by the air sector, which demands maximum agility from the Member States for its approval and implementation.

The Community Executive said that it wanted only the vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency to be recognized, although it stressed that it would give permission to the Governments to accept other drugs, such as the Russian Sputnik V or the Chinese Sinopharm.

.