The COVID passport makes its way in Spain amid doubts

With an enviable vaccination rate and widespread use of masks, Spain turns to the COVID passport to curb the sudden increase in coronavirus cases, not without reluctance.

In the absence of a national harmonization, the regions have accelerated in the last week the requirement of this immunization test, discarded the confinements and reluctant to recover time restrictions for the hotel industry.

Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Navarra and Galicia require a passport, mainly at nightlife and at banquets and celebrations in restaurants, as does Catalonia, which goes further and also requires it from this Friday in gyms and visits to nursing homes; in the Basque Country, on the other hand, it was rejected by the courts.

The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country estimated that the “very high percentage of vaccinated is a factor that works against the measurea”.

“Imposing the requirement of the Passport indiscriminately lacks justification, and even less when it is simultaneously recognized that the effects of contagion on those vaccinated are not relevant”, He sentenced.

Avoid a mess

For Magda Campins, head of the scientific committee that advises the Catalan government, the passport serves “to try to avoid more restrictive measures that represent a more important mess for our daily lives and for those establishments to which the restrictions are imposed ”.

Almost 90% of the population over 12 years of age is fully vaccinated in Spain, where 27 people died of COVID on Thursday, in contrast to the more than 900 who perished at the worst moment of the pandemic.

At that time, intensive care units were overflowing with COVID patients, while on Thursday these were 6.22% of those in ICUs.

The Basque government will appeal to the Supreme Court, which, in the absence of a specific law, estimated in September, not without reservations, that the measure fitted into existing laws when it gave the go-ahead to the Galician authorities to implement it.

Difficulties to implant it

“Unlike practically all the countries of the European Union that have had special regulations for the pandemic since it began, here the Spanish Government and the Spanish legislator have decided to do practically nothing about it, that has contaminated the entire situation”Said Lorenzo Cotino, professor of constitutional law at the University of Valencia.

Although the Supreme Court “The greatest has admitted, that is, that the COVID passport can be adopted with the bad legislation that we have”, This former magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia estimated that doubts about its impact on rights would intensify if it was demanded at work or on public transport.

The COVID passport has led to large protests in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, in this case accompanied by strong disturbances, something that is not currently in sight in Spain, although the passport does not elicit unanimity.

“Let it be clear to the regional chiefs: We will reject that the COVID passport is a reason for discrimination among Spaniards and we will resort to the Courts as many times as necessary”The far-right party warned on Twitter Vox.

The hospitality industry prefers it to closures, but “Difficulties are seen to implement it due to the need for control personnel at the doors of the establishments, the difficulty generated by the digital divide at certain ages and the disincentive it can be“, Said in a statement the Spanish Hospitality Business Confederation (CZECH).

The CZECH observed that in some countries the passport works “as an incentive for vaccination (due to low citizen participation), not as a measure to contain the pandemic”, Something that is not necessary in Spain.