Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Can the EU be trusted to introduce vaccine passports?

Ursula von der Leyen (Photo: Getty)

The contracts were badly drafted. The orders were late. Too few resources were made available for the scale of the task, and the regulators dithered and delayed. Even the most fanatical federalists such as Guy Verhofstadt have admitted the EU’s vaccine programme was little short of a catastrophe. But hey, what does that matter? Ursula von der Leyen has decided this is the moment to double down on the EU’s Covid-19 strategy, and launch a centralised vaccine passport. What could possibly go wrong? Well, er, as the EU’s vaccine fiasco has taught us, lots actually.

Von der Leyen has today tried to bounce back from her difficulties with the vaccine programme with a plan for EU-wide Covid passports. She told German lawmakers the Commission was planning a ‘digital green pass’ that would either say you have had the vaccine, or the results of a Covid test. With your papers all in order, like in the old war movies, you will then be able to move freely around the continent.

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