[국제]Merkel “Digital vaccination certificate likely to be available before summer”

[앵커]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU and EU member states’ leaders all agreed that a coronavirus vaccination certificate is required.

Prime Minister Merkel says the vaccination certificate will probably be available before summer.

Reporter Won-bae Kim reports.

[기자]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a press conference in Berlin after videoconferences between European Union and EU leaders and said all EU leaders agreed that a digital vaccination certificate was required.

[앙겔라 메르켈 / 독일 총리 : 마지막에 중요한 점은 디지털 백신 접종증명서였습니다. 정상들 모두가 그것이 필요하다는 데 동의합니다.]

Prime Minister Merkel said it would take about three months for the European Commission, an executive committee, to lay the technical foundation for a digital vaccination certificate.

This means digital vaccination certificates are available before this summer.

[앙겔라 메르켈 / 독일 총리 : 독일은 그러한 백신 접종 증명서를 개발하기로 결정했습니다. EU 집행위와 회원국들이 증명서에 포함되는 자료를 정합니다.]

Merkel says the EU Commission has already done some technical preliminary work, but it will take additional time to develop a digital certificate like this.

Merkel added that the digital vaccination certificate could lay the groundwork for third-country nationals to travel to the EU.

In the meantime, opinions have diverged among EU member states over the issue of introducing a corona19 vaccination certificate or a’vaccine passport’, but Bloomberg reported that the agreement came closer to the agreement at this meeting.

In particular, sources say Prime Minister Merkel, who had been skeptical, has eased the position.

In the meantime, in Germany, France, Belgium, etc., there are not many people who have been vaccinated, and there is a possibility of spreading the virus even after the vaccinated people get the vaccine, and the introduction of the vaccine certificate was premature.

On the other hand, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark wanted to introduce a’vaccine passport’ as one of the ways to save the tourism industry.

Some EU member states, such as Sweden, have already announced that they will introduce it.

In a statement released after the meeting, the leaders of the EU member states called for continuing work on a common approach to vaccination certificates, and said they would discuss the matter again later.

This is YTN Kim Won-bae.

[저작권자(c) YTN & YTN plus 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]