The Court of Auditors of the European Union has warned on Wednesday of the lack of specific procedures to count in the long term with tools such as the digital Covid Certificate to avoid new travel restrictions within the common area in case of new health crises, since the mechanism designed for the pandemic will expire in June and its extension would depend on new negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council.
This certificate is the document that allows travelers to prove that they are immunized against the coronavirus, either by having received the required doses of the vaccine, having recently overcome the infection or, failing that, having a negative test, and according to the auditors’ regret, it is the only technical solution that the Member States applied in a generalized manner, since the rest of the measures had an uneven impact.
The audit findings reveal that the Covid-19 certificate helped to coordinate travel restrictions between Member States and was useful in facilitating travel during the pandemic after the first months of chaos due to unilateral internal border closures, and that the European Commission acted swiftly to propose appropriate technological solutions, despite its limited competencies in health and home affairs.
However, the use of these tools by EU countries varied significantly, so their impact on facilitating movement was uneven, which is why the auditors call on the EU to be better prepared to deal more effectively with possible future emergencies.
Moreover, in contrast to the usefulness attributed to the Covid certificate, the auditors note that the use of other tools developed for the same purpose was «modest», as was the case with the gateway service for contact tracing, the digital passenger location forms and the platform for member states to exchange this data.
ONLY COVID CERTIFICATE FACILITATED TRAVEL In practice, the auditors concluded, only the EU’s digital COVID certificate helped coordinate travel restrictions in the EU environment and was effective in facilitating travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was, moreover, the only tool used in all member states, and even in 49 non-EU countries and territories with more than 1.7 billion certificates issued by the end of March 2022.
EU PERFORMANCE The EU provided 71 million euros for the development of these IT tools, funds that, in the auditors’ view, the European Commission mobilized «quickly», adopting a pragmatic approach to the development of the tools in a limited timeframe.
The contact tracing gateway became operational seven months after the start of the pandemic, while the EU digital certificate was completed before Member States had finalized their vaccination plans, while the passenger tracing forms were developed «too late», as some national solutions were already available earlier.
The auditors also note that Brussels failed to overcome the reservations of some member states to use EU tools motivated by data protection and other legal issues, partly because they had already developed their own national instruments.
Nevertheless, the report finds that the Commission addressed data protection issues and applied best practices in IT security.
USE OF OTHER TOOLS The report also found that only four member states used the EU’s digital passenger tracking form and, of nearly 27 million forms issued by February 2022, more than 9 out of 10 were issued by a single EU country: Italy.
Similarly, the exchange platform was hardly used, and, until the end of February 2022, only 256 forms were exchanged (all but one of them from Spain).
The use of applications for contact tracing varied significantly, as by May 2022, most of the data on the gateway (83%) had been generated only by users in Germany.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
