European Union Covid 19 travel pass is valid for nine months

European Union Covid 19 travel pass is valid for nine months. 

The European Commission on Tuesday adopted rules to allow it possible to make the European Union COVID-19 certificate valid for travel for nine months following the conclusion of the initial vaccination schedule. 

The plan comes as many EU states have added additional requirements for travelers to cut down transmission of Omicron coronavirus type.

EU Justice Minister Didier Reynders told Reuters the EU Commission was against additional requirements and looked into the proposed measures.

These new regulations will become obligatory for the 27 EU states starting February 1. 

After that, the rules can be rescinded by the qualified majority of EU governments or simply a majority of European lawmakers. But officials have stated that there is enough support for the rule to pass.

READ MORE: President Joe Biden unveils plan to tackle Omicron in the U.S.

The rule replaces a nonbinding recommendation that the EU Commission put forward in November.

After the rule has been implemented, EU states will be required to allow fully vaccinated travelers who have a valid travel permit to access their territories. 

But, in the case of an exception based on a deteriorating situation, they can apply additional requirements like testing hostile or imposing quarantines insofar as they are in proportion to. 

In addition, seven EU states are currently mandating all travelers coming from different EU countries to demonstrate a negative COVID-19 test on arriving, a measure that some view as detrimental to the credibility of the EU test. 

The states include Italy, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Latvia, Cyprus, and Austria.

“We prefer to use only the certificate for the free movement in Europe without additional measures,” Reynders declared.

He said that the extra obligations could also be justified with concerns arising from the expansion and spread of Omicron. Omicron variant, however, governments needed to demonstrate that they were reasonable and necessary.

The Commission is still evaluating the measure, Reynders said, adding that the infringement proceedings for time-limited restrictions did not make sense. 

The national rules are generally only applicable to Christmas and extend to the final day of January. The new laws are only applicable to international travelers.

The government will be granted a different length of the COVID-19 card to allow access to indoor or outdoor activities within their borders. 

Furthermore, following a booster shot, the COVID-19 passes will be extended even further, without any limit since there’s not enough information on the length of protection against booster shots, according to an EU official told.

A routine vaccination schedule for COVID-19 in the EU comprises two shots of vaccines made by Pfizer BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna, or a single shot of The Johnson & Johnson vaccine.