Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia have officially joined the EU Digital COVID Certificate on November 15, after the three countries met all the requirements to become part of the system used for travel in Europe.
“Today, we welcome Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia in our #EUCovidCertificate system,” the EU Commission wrote on its official Twitter account yesterday.
In line with the newly made announcement, COVID-19 certificates that are issued by the authorities of Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia will now be recognised under the same conditions as the EU Digital COVID Certificate issued by EU/Schengen Area countries.
This means that citizens of these third countries will now be able to travel to the EU Member States and other third countries that are already connected to the system as long as they hold a valid certificate that proves vaccination or recovery from the virus.
Those who hold a recent negative COVID-19 test result also fall under the same rules, SchengenVisaInfo reports.
“When travelling, the EU Digital COVID Certificate holder should in principle be exempt from free movement restrictions: Member States should refrain from imposing additional travel restrictions on the holders of an EU Digital COVID Certificate,” the Commission explained.
Nonetheless, the authorities of Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia need to keep relaxed entry and travel rules for other holders of the EU Digital COVID Certificate, too, meaning that those who hold the document should generally be exempted from all entry rules when reaching the three countries.
Except for Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia that have joined the system just now, another 11 third countries are also connected to the gateway.
“49 countries and territories in five continents are now connected to the system – hereby strengthening confidence in safe travel inside and outside the EU!” the Commission added.
These countries are Albania, Armenia, the Faroe Islands, Israel, Morocco, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Panama, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Armenia and the United Kingdom joined the system just a couple of weeks ago.
When reaching any EU Member State, travellers from Georgia, Moldova, Serbia and the other countries that are already part of the system should make sure that their vaccination certificate indicates that they have been fully immunised against the virus with one of the vaccines that are recognised by their destination country.
All of the EU/Schengen Area countries accept vaccine doses approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). In contrast, those approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) are not as widely recognised.
In order to avoid any inconveniences when travelling abroad, it is highly suggested that everyone checks the validity of their vaccine. This can be done by using the vaccine-checker tool developed by VisaGuide.World, which helps travellers to verify whether the vaccine they have been immunised with is recognised by their destination country.