The European Commission has approved a proposal to extend the European Union Chinese coronavirus health pass until June 30th of 2023, but still maintains the measure is “exceptional.”
The announcement to extend the passport until June of 2023 was made this week by European Commission spokesman Christian Wigand, who stated that the pass was being extended as the EU was cautious of possible increases in the spread of the virus later this year.
The European Union coronavirus passport came into force on July 1st of 2021 and was limited to a year with the possibility of extensions and is meant to facilitate travel across the various member state of the political bloc, newspaper Il Tempo reports.
The extension of the EU passport comes despite many countries within the European Union starting to scrap coronavirus restrictions entirely, including their domestic health pass systems.
Denmark announced it would be scrapping all coronavirus restrictions last week, with the country’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stating the country was in a position where it could remove the restrictions and “smile again.”
Health Minister Magnus Heunicke also stated, “The situation in Denmark is that we have this decoupling between infections and intensive care patients, and it is mainly due to the large attachment among Danes to revaccination,” and added, “That is the reason why it is safe [to loosen measures] and the right thing to do now.”
Last month, the Irish government also announced it would be scrapping its domestic health passport system after just six months of use, with Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Micheál Martin stating that the programme was no longer needed.
“I think we’re into a new phase of the pandemic, which is the phase that the type of restrictions that we’ve imposed in the previous phases is no longer required,” Martin said and added, “Spring is coming and I don’t know if I’ve ever looked forward to one as much as I’m looking forward to this one.”