Bulgaria among Seven EU Member States to Roll out First Digital Covid Certificates

The EU's Digital COVID Certificate reached another milestone on Tuesday (1 June) with the go-live of the technical system at the EU level, followed by seven member states that started rolling out their certificates.

Seven member states - Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Croatia, and Poland - connected to the gateway and started issuing the first EU certificates, almost a month ahead of 1 July, when the proposal enters the application phase. 

A provisional deal on the certificate, previously known as the digital green certificate, was reached on 20 May, while the regulation will be applied from 1 July.

But countries which have passed the technical tests and are ready to issue and verify certificates are already encouraged to start using the system on a voluntary basis.

The roll-out depends on each country's progress. Germany started a partial roll-out, for example, with certificates available only in several regions.

Three more countries also linked to the gateway on Tuesday are slated to start rolling out the certificates soon, while some other EU countries will launch it only when all functions can be deployed nationwide. 

The EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said that seven member states was "a good start" and encouraged others to follow.

"The timely preparation will allow the full system to be up and running by 1 July - when the proposal enters into the application and the EU will be on time to open up again this summer," he said. 

Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides also urged countries to finalise their national systems to issue, store and verify certificates to be ready for the holiday season.

"EU citizens are looking forward to travelling again, and they want to...