Turkey joins European COVID-19 Passport Program

The European Commission recently announced that they will accept COVID-19 certificates from Turkey. The executive body of the EU made the same decision to accept certificates from both Ukraine and North Macedonia. This decision sees Turkey joining the bloc’s COVID-19 pass protocol, which moves travel to and within the bloc.

Turkish COVID-19 Certificate

People that hold a Turkish COVID-19 certificate will no longer need to take additional measures created by the pandemic when travelling in any area of Europe. EU citizens can also use their COVID-19 passes when they travel to and enter Turkey.

Oliver Varhelyi, the EU Commissioner said when asked about the decision to welcome Turkey, North Macedonia, and Ukraine into the bloc’s Digital COVID Certificate System that: “As we fight the pandemic together, our partners are also an integral part of opening up safely together.”

Originally launched in July, the digital COVID-19 certificate was designed to assist European travellers across the 27-nation bloc and open summer tourism again throughout the countries.

The Certificate

Travellers can print their certificate or keep it on a smartphone, and it has been created as a type of QR-code, and this shows if a traveller has had all the recommended vaccines approved by the EMA (European Medicine Agency) as well as whether the traveller has also had a recent negative test result or immunity from and recovery from the COVID-19 infection.

The certificate is free and set out in the national language as well as English and is issued and accepted in every country within the EU. This type of system will also extend to the non-EU countries that are in the Schengen border free zone with these being Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.

EMA Authorised Vaccines

The European Medicine Agency vaccines that have been approved are produced by the pharmaceutical companies Moderna, AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson and CureVac.

The vaccine certificate allows Turkish people who have received both of their Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines over two weeks previously to enter, or those who have recovered from COVID-19 and can prove it to enter the bloc with no further restrictions. Those who have had no vaccinations will need to undergo a test and those who have been inoculated with Sinovac will need to check the entry requirements for the specific country that they want to enter into.