ST. PETERSBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th June, 2021) As countries and organizations such as the European Union look to launch digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates that could facilitate the resumption of international travel, governments must strike a balance between reopening their economies and preventing the likelihood of new surges of the disease, Tadzio Schilling, the CEO of the Association of European Businesses (AEB), told Sputnik.
"I think the important thing is to strike a balance between the need to restart economic activity, travel activity, tourism, and, at the same time, the need to avoid new flashes, new local waves of COVID-19 upsurges," Schilling said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
The AEB's CEO said that the launch of a mutually recognized certificate, that would see the European Union recognize Russian-made COVID-19 vaccines, and vice versa, could help resume business travel and economic activity.
"The answer is obviously, in the sense that more regular contacts, more intensive travel activity, more possibility to meet, to visit each other, can only be beneficial to business in general and to investment activity. Then again, we also see that both in Europe and in Russia, the crisis, the pandemic, is not yet over," Schilling commented.
The AEB's CEO added that the guidelines covering the approval of vaccines in both the European Union and Russia were highly regulated and thorough.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is currently undergoing the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) rolling review process, and a joint delegation of EMA and World Health Organization experts recently visited Russia to inspect manufacturing facilities.
Speaking at SPIEF's plenary session on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized certain regulators for their "politically motivated" decision to not, as yet, issue emergency use approval for the Sputnik V vaccine.
This year's edition of SPIEF was held from June 2-5 in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. Rossiya Segodnya was an official media partner of the event.
