EU COVID Certificate: A Vehicle of Arbitrary Restrictions

Abstract

Boasting numerous positive pretexts underpinning its introduction, the EU COVID Certificate is not such a positive development, we demonstrate. Doubt can be cast on the suitability of the COCVID Certificate in facilitating freedom of movement; an extreme fragmentation remains when it comes to cross-border travel rules in the EU. This fragmentation, caused by the violations of the Treaties by numerous Member States, is not acted upon by the Commission. Instead of safeguarding EU citizens’ rights, it seems to rejoice in the ability of the new Regulation introducing the EU Digital COVID Certificate to harm these rights: seemingly a legislative carte blanche for arbitrariness and abuse of power. Doubt can also be shed on the public-health asserted grounds for excluding non-EMA vaccines from the mutual recognition obligation in the Regulation. Member State restrictions on cross-border movement raising doubt on their compatibility with EU law have so far gone unchallenged, yet the DCC Regulation left broad scope for the implementation of arbitrary, discriminatory or disproportionate restrictions on cross-border movement.