Tourists from the United States fully vaccinated against the coronavirus will be able to visit European Union countries this boreal summer

North American tourists fully vaccinated against covid-19 will be able to travel this boreal summer to European Union (EU) countries, according to the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, in an interview with the newspaper The New York Times.

“As far as I know, Americans use vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). This will allow them to travel and move freely “the German official explained to the American newspaper.

“One thing is clear: the 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines approved by the EMA,” he added.

The EMA has approved vaccines developed by pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, all three currently administered in the United States.

However, The New York Times He pointed out that the President of the European Commission did not give an exact date or more details on this opening to American tourism of fully vaccinated people and pointed out that the last word will always be taken by each country. In other words, individual member states can reserve the right to maintain stricter limits and not allow citizens from outside the bloc to enter inside their borders even if they have vaccination permits.

He further clarified that the resumption of travel will depend “on the epidemiological situation, but the situation is improving in the United States, as it is expected that it will also improve in the European Union”.

What Von der Leyen pointed out is that the North American country was “on track” to achieve immunity by mid-June, with 70 percent of the adult population immunized.

Andy slavitt, senior White House adviser for the coronavirus, said the European Union’s decision is a sample of the successful vaccination campaign led by Joe Biden’s government.

“What the world is basically saying is that it looks at the United States, that it looks at the success of our vaccination program, that it seeks to reduce disease, and even if it knows that we do not ‘re not done yet, they say these Americans are safe. to come to our country without risking spreading Covid-19 ”, the American official told the channel CNN.

“Just a few months ago, we were the nation in the world that prevented travel the most. This shows the incredible months we spent vaccinating Americans (…) Being able to visit European Union countries is just one of the newfound freedoms that await fully vaccinated Americans, ”he added. .

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English), about 28% of Americans are already fully vaccinated. The most recent data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, meanwhile, suggests that at least 23.7% of European adults have already received a dose of the coronavirus vaccine and 8.7% have both doses, numbers that may give rise to optimism after a year of the pandemic.

“We’re going to find more and more things like this, both internationally and nationally. I think more and more action will be taken in the coming weeks on what vaccinated Americans can do, besides just traveling – because we don’t all travel – which is going to be very important, ”concluded Slavitt, who noted that the key to getting back to normal “is vaccination”.

Von der Leyen’s statements to the American newspaper coincide with the last preliminary phase for the European institutions to start negotiating the establishment of a community vaccination certificate.

The European Parliament wishes to approve the final draft of this Community certificate at its plenary session in June, so that a pilot test of the document can be launched at the beginning of this month and is fully available late, thus helping to promote the summer tourist campaign.

The proposal for this document is now entering its final week before negotiations begin to shape and limit its use in a coordinated fashion, which will predictably take place during the month of May. Earlier this Wednesday, the European Parliament (EP) will vote on the amendments to the legislative proposal made in March by the European Commission (EC) and adopt a negotiating position to start discussions with the Council on this future document which will gather information whether a person has received the covid vaccine, has a recent negative PCR test, or has antibodies after being infected.

The 17th of March the European Commission presented the digital certificate with the intention that it be ready before the summer in order to reactivate travel by then, a goal shared by the aviation sector, which requires maximum agility from the Member States for its approval and implementation.

The community executive assured that he intended that only vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency be recognized, although he stressed that he would give permission to governments to accept other drugs, such as Russian Sputnik V or Chinese Sinopharm.

According to community sources at the time, Brussels has also shown its willingness to collaborate with third countries with similar certificates (like the United States) although the sources mentioned did not believe that the agreements on the interoperability of the document could be concluded before the summer.

The European Union has stopped all non-essential travel to the bloc More than a year ago in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Greece, for example, announced last week that travelers from the EU and five other countries vaccinated or tested negative for the coronavirus will no longer need to self-quarantine upon arrival. The country is looking to redouble efforts to reopen its struggling tourism sector and has ramped up vaccine rollouts in hopes of building immunity among residents.

With information from EFE and CNN

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