COVID-19 and sanitary certification: quo vadis Europa Unionis?
Authors: Sofinska Iryna 
Published: September 2022

In this article, the author examines the objectivity of the passport since the 1920s. After the First World War finished, pandemiaof Spanish Flu on the international arena appeared there a necessity to rethink and revitalize the passport. By the mid-1920s, manycountries’ governments began to demand compulsory medical examinations for all those who would like to visit their countries. Theidea was that every traveler needs to undergo a thorough medical exam before embarking on a cross-border trip. However, the idea ofinstalling a medical certificate page in the passport was quickly destroyed (at least hampered) by the technological limitations of thetime.Times changed after Second World War changed, and the UNO was founded. In 1959, the WHO created the International Certificateof Vaccination (so-called Carte Jaune) as a vaccination certificate, not a real immunity passport.The idea to introduce ‘vaccine passports’ in Europe and globally is gaining more attraction among governments and industrieslooking for the best way out of shutdowns, quarantine restrictions, curfews, and travel bans. It seems to be a potential ticket to freedomof movement; however, some people fear such documentation could exclude or discriminate against those made most vulnerable by thepandemic misfortune.It was highlighted that passport is a standardized written visualized anthropometric personalized proof of bearer citizenship.However, currently, it is not enough to possess a passport to have safe travel and/or exercise freedom of movement (in and out of theEuropean Union). On the EU level as well as globally, everybody is discussing the familiar theses from the last century on the introductionof an immunity passport or certificate of vaccination to ensure freedom of movement, protect travelers from quarantine mea -sures and increase national security, on the one hand, and the revival of communications, tourism, and international trade, on the other.In 2020 EU member states and other countries globally launched research and production on the vaccine on COVID-19. Simu -ltaneously, some of those countries began to elaborate a real and vital document to travel and move freely (immunity passport or certificateof vaccination) and a mechanism of their introduction and implementation in legislation. This document aims not only to showthe identity of its bearer but also to secure citizens from the infection. “This virus (COVID-19) does not have a passport”, declaredFrench President Emmanuel Macron on 12 March 2020 in a primary television address to the French people.The EU declares to introduce ‘A Digital Green Certificate’ (a mixed version of both immunity passport or certificate of vaccination)in June 2021. It would be digital proof that a person has either been vaccinated against COVID-19 (by the vaccine authorized inthe EU) or received a negative test result or recovered from COVID-19. It would be free of charge, in digital and/or paper format withQR code. It would be issued by national authorities both in the national language and English, valid in all EU member states. So, everyEU citizen or third-country national legally staying or residing in the EU, who holds a Digital Green Certificate, should be exemptedfrom free movement restrictions in the same way as citizens from the visited EU member state.