The Department of Health has launched a system so that from this Thursday people who have been vaccinated abroad can prove that they have the full schedule and obtain their vaccination certificate of vaccination. This was announced on Catalunya Ràdio by the head of the Public Health Agency's Preventive Medicine service, Montse Martínez Marcos, who explained citizens have been vaccinated outside Catalonia or Spain can go to their Primary Care Centers (CAP) to provide the necessary data to generate the QR code that will allow them to prove that they are fully vaccinated.

The European Covid Certificate will come into force this Thursday to make travel within the European Union easier and safer. Although it will not be compulsory to have the document to travel within the Schengen area, having it will speed up travel: for example, exempting from quarantine and diagnostic tests on arrival in the country of destination. So far, Catalonia has issued more than one million certificates, most of them to certify the complete vaccination schedule.

This Thursday the legislation on the use of the European Union's covid certificate officially comes into force across Europe. Although there are more than twenty EU member countries and others such as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein that already use it, the official date for the law to come into force is July 1. The date makes explicit the will of this mechanism to save summer, both from the economic point of view and from the more social side, after a year of strict restrictions on mobility. And finally the day has come, but not without obstacles in sight. The spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus is putting authorities across Europe and the world on alert, and airlines and airports across the continent are complaining that the implementation of the certificate could lead to chaos in high season if it is not done correctly.

European citizens will have a common vaccination certificate to make travel easier from July onwards. The agreement has not been easy, but finally the Parliament and European governments have agreed on the basis of this instrument. It will be called the "EU Covid Certificate", will be in the form of a QR and will contain all the information related to vaccines administered, PCR tests or the presence of antibodies. In the vast majority of cases, vaccinated people would be released from tests or quarantines, but ultimately imposing these restrictions whether or not the person traveling is immunised will be for each government to decide, which may impose them if it deems it necessary and justified due to epidemiological reasons.

The negotiations begin. The European Parliament on Wednesday set out its negotiating position on what the European digital vaccination certificate proposed by the European Commission a few weeks ago should look like and what it should be used for. MEPs are calling for the certificate to avoid quarantine and for travel PCRs to be free of charge, as well as being very cautious about data privacy. But both the European Commission and the EU governments represented in the Council qualify these demands and, therefore, will negotiate three-way from now with the aim of reaching an agreement in the coming weeks so that the certificate can come into force in June. Although the position of MEPs is clear, the result of the vote will not be known until Thursday.

Spain is getting ready for the covid passport, which the European authorities have called the 'digital green certificate'. The European Commission's decision to give the green light to the first draft of the document has opened the door to the Ministry of Health to start planning for the arrival of foreigners in summer, after weeks of pressure in Brussels, along with Italy and Greece, so that vaccinated people could move unimpeded through the European Union. In the end, however, it will be up to each European state to decide what restrictions to impose, regardless of the certificate.