A new report by the European Court of Auditors has determined that while the EU’s Digital Covid Certificate did help coordinate travel restrictions between EU countries and was "effective in facilitating travel" during the pandemic, the impact of other tools "was modest".
The report praised the European Commission for swiftly proposing technological solutions, but found usage by EU destinations "varied significantly" meaning their impact on facilitating travel "was uneven".
"The auditors call on the EU to prepare itself better, so that it can face potential future emergencies more successfully," the report concluded.
As countries began imposing border control and travel restrictions, the European Commission sought to limit the impact of such measures on free movement, focusing in particular on tools to facilitate travel and help trace positive cases of Covid-19.
These included a contact-tracing gateway, digital passenger locator forms and a platform for member states to exchange them, and the EU Digital Covid Certificate. In total, the EU provided €71 million to develop such tools.
The report highlighted positives, such as how the contact-tracing gateway became operational seven months after the start of the pandemic and the completion of the EU Digital Certificate before EU countries had finished their vaccination plans.
"In contrast, passenger locator forms were developed too late, since some national solutions had already been made available earlier," read the report.
In addition, it said the European Commission did not manage to completely overcome certain member states’ reservations about using the EU-developed tools due to data protection and legal concerns.
Baudilio Tome Muguruza, the ECA member responsible for the audit, said: "It was crucial that all EU countries adopt common tools to coordinate free movement restrictions and facilitate travel despite the unprecedented situation we were faced with.
"Not all EU tools were taken up by member states, and the success of the EU Digital Covid Certificate was not reflected in other tools."
