During the plenary session (26-29 April 2021) in the European Parliament in Brussels, MEPs debate on the Digital green certificate - Union citizens & third countries - The accessibility and affordability of Covid-testing: opening statement by Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D,ES), rapporteur. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery.

Brussels

statement

debate

plenary session

LÓPEZ AGUILAR, Juan Fernando (S&D, ES)

healthcare safety (T)

Coronavirus outbreak (T)

vaccination strategy (T)

EU covid-19 certificate (T)

Joint debate on the Digital green certificate - Union citizens & third countries - The accessibility and affordability of Covid-testing: opening statement by Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), rapporteur

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando L&Oacute;PEZ AGUILAR (S&amp;D, ES), Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Reynders. Mrs Zacarias, thank you. It's a year now since the WHO announced that we were living through a pandemic and that it started to affect the entire world, including the European Union and all its citizens with an unprecedented virulence. Clearly, the changes that we've lived through have not been the best. Certainly not.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), They've put member states constitutional structures to the test. They've put European law to the test. Many member states have adopted emergency measures which have been very controversial given their constitutional structures. But in the EU, we've seen an unprecedented impact on Schengen, the Schengen area, which is a fundamental right of the citizens of the European Union, the free movement of citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), And as a consequence of the emergency measures adopted by member states, we have seen this contradiction with European law, with the Schengen code, which is legislation, which is a binding regulation. And the result has been that Schengen has been put under threat like never before. We need to re-establish free movement. The Commission has taken the initiative to produce this. Without free movement, we don't have a European Union.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), And there won't be economic or social recovery either, after the damage caused by the covid pandemic, which has hit hard the sectors of the economy that rely on free movement of persons, tourism and other sectors as well. The Commission has adopted this initiative in order to relaunch Schengen and free movement and the President of the Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen is calling for the urgency procedure. The free movement of persons is the legal basis.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), And I have the honour of chairing the LIBE Committee and being rapporteur, surrounded by an excellent team cooperating with me, and we've been working very quickly with all the political groups in the Parliament because we support the urgency procedure. We support the urgency procedure, but not only that, we support all the objective of helping to restore free movement.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), But, we have pointed out in the LIBE Committee committee that we need proportionality, we need to be guided by fundamental rights, and that the data being included in the certificate need to be the absolute minimum necessary to produce the effects that the message that we are sending through this. It has to be the absolute minimum of data. It Is good news for border workers, for temporary workers, for people who work in transport, people who work in tourism. We were talking about this yesterday in our plenary session.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), So we need measures that are in line with our concerns on fundamental rights, confidentiality, privacy, which are fundamental rights in the European Charter on Fundamental Rights. So here what we're saying is that the data cannot be collected by a central european database, they can only be collected by the health authorities that issue the certificate. In the case of vaccinations and in the case of PCR tests.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), Those data cannot be used for any other purpose than guaranteeing free movement. They cannot be used internally by member states for allowing people to go to the theatre or a restaurant or public spaces, only for the free movement of persons. And we're saying that there needs to be accessibility for people with disabilities in line with the directive that we adopted in 2019. Whether the certificate is a paper-based or digital, they need to be accessible to people with disabilities.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), Three months before the end of the period of validity, there needs to be a notification by the commission because we are talking about a pandemic where we can establish the legal conditions to see what the yields have been from that instrument after a year, so we needed an assessment after a year.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), And the whole legal system of this certification needs to put an end to this chaos that we're living through, these discriminatory and different measures, we need a homogenous certificate that is valid in all member states, which can get rid of this cacophony of different measures that prevent people from moving freely, that discourage people from wanting to move around the union.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), And I'm coming to an end now madam. The certificate needs to be free of charge and the tests because the tests are prohibitively expensive in certain member states, they cannot have a prohibitive price. It's a it's a mandatory test. It can't be so expensive and they can't be additional measures imposed by member states.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), The certificate is there to guarantee free movement. We are just waiting for the interinstitutional procedure to be completed. And we need to reach an agreement so that by June, people will be able to move freely again.