MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th June, 2021) EU nations will decide for themselves whether to recognize COVID-19 certificates confirming vaccination with shots authorized only by certain member states, but not the European Medicines Agency (EMA), European Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said on Monday.
Earlier in June, the European Parliament approved the introduction of coronavirus certificates to facilitate travel within the bloc, with three types of the document, confirming either vaccination, recovery or a negative test. The digital certificate will be launched on July 1.
"Vaccines approved by EMA have to be accepted under the certificate ... For other vaccines that might have been approved by certain member states and used in their national programs, it remains in the hands of the other member states to see whether they would want to accept such a vaccine when it is presented for traveling," Wigand told a briefing.
The European Parliament voiced the same stance on certificates for vaccines not authorized by the EU regulator in late May, recalling that the bloc has so far greenlighted four COVID-19 shots by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
