BRUSSELS — European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas expressed his optimism that there will be soon an agreement in the European Union on the vaccination certificate. In an interview with the Greek public broadcaster ERT, he said that "after the last EU Summit, I believe that there is a convergence on the need to have this digital certificate, which will be a European product and will be the same throughout Europe".

In this context, Margaritis outlined the European Commission's proposal for the digital certificate, which will be presented on March 17. He clarified that the Commission will present the specifications for the digital certificate, which will be the same for all of Europe, but not the parameters for its use. Once the proposal is unveiled, he explained, two additional things need to be done: firstly, to take the decision, which will be discussed at the European Council on March 25 and the relevant councils of ministers, and secondly, the technical processing required so that each member-state can allow its citizens to lock, codify and enter information into the system.

Schinas said that the aim is for all these processes to be completed before the summer.

On the vaccination, the Commissioner emphasised that it was the largest and most ambitious vaccination project in human history. "Never before has someone bought 2.6 doses of a vaccine from six different companies for 450,000,000 people," he said, adding that "we are also talking about the management of a scientific miracle".

Furthermore, he said that the rate of vaccine production was accelerating, estimating that all Europeans over 60 years will have been vaccinated some time in April, while that by the end of May and around the end of June, "we will have 600,000,000 doses".