The scheme excludes at least 15 per cent of the global vaccinated population and acts as a barrier to trade-in services

Travel is badly hit due to the Coronavirus pandemic and consequent restrictions on cross-border movement across the world. There is a decline in the range of 42-47 per cent in the number of travelling passengers in 2021 in comparison to 2019.

For India, the number of passengers travelling by air picked up after the recovery from the first wave but fell drastically when the second wave hit the country in 2021. In June 2021, the average daily departures at 1,100 are significantly higher than 700 departures in June 2020. The figure is significantly lower for April 2021.

Travel becomes an important medium for trade in services, especially when consumers or firms make use of a service in another country (for example, international tourism and education). It is necessary to revive travel and provide conducive and safe options for it. Many countries are following testing and quarantine requirements to strike a balance between travel and safety.

The introduction of vaccines opened up new opportunities to help revive travel. However, it is important to carefully design policies that help revive travel demand. In a recent guideline, the WHO has recommended its member States do not seek proof of vaccination or recovery as a mandatory condition for entry to or exit from a country.

It says vaccinated people can be exempted from testing and quarantine requirements. In this direction, many countries like China, Israel, and European countries have introduced vaccine certificates for vaccinated travellers that ease the process of entering and travel across the country.

Though these certificates can help travel for trade facilitation, they can also act as a trade barrier if they encourage any kind of discriminatory treatment. The recent and the most contentious issue in this regard is the EU “Green Pass” scheme. Through this vaccine certificate, the European Commission intends to remove travel restrictions as entry bans, quarantine obligation, and testing. The EU has listed only four vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)for the Green Pass- Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty, Moderna’s Spike vax, Oxford-Astra Zeneca’s Vaxzevria and Johnson & Johnso’s Janssen.

It creates a schism between low-income and high-income countries in terms of vaccination rates varying by income levels. The rate of vaccine doses administered per 100 is 1.8 for low-income countries and 84 for high-income countries. This makes the travellers from low-income countries ineligible to avail these certificates.

The second discrimination is based on the type of vaccines administered in a country. As the Green Pass scheme includes only four vaccines approved by EMA, it makes travellers from countries administering alternate vaccines ineligible for certification. When it was launched, the policy did not even allow Astra Zeneca’s Indian-manufactured vaccine, Covishield. The resultant push back made 16 EU countries accept Covishield. Still, discrimination exists in the sense that Indian travellers vaccinated with Covishield need to quarantine in The Netherlands as India is considered a high-risk country.

This goes against the policy of COVAX, which has stated that “any measure that only allows people protected by a subset of  WHO-approved vaccines to benefit from the re-opening of travel into and with that region would effectively create a two-tier system… (and) would negatively impact the growth of (affected) economies”.

Countries, including India, not administering any of the EMA-approved vaccines account for at least 15 per cent of the vaccinated population and they fall mostly in low-income and middle-income categories. It is important to note that nationals from many of these countries also serve in the hospitality industries in countries across the world, including Europe.

Such an EU policy does not go well with the globalization policy of collective welfare. Meanwhile, countries need to co-operate on vaccine production for accelerating the global vaccination process. The Covid vaccine supply chain can involve more than 100 components and it must be strengthened. For this, lifting of trade barriers for vaccine raw materials is a critical step.

Some policy movementis seen in this direction. The global vaccine makers have created a platform led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to connect with key raw material suppliers needed to boost production. Also, in a recent declaration, WTO members have agreed to review and promptly eliminate unnecessary existing export restrictions on essential medical goods necessary to combat the pandemic. In this regard, the two relevant apex bodies, WHO and WTO should work together to sort out such selective criteria for international movement.

(The writer is an Associate Fellow, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). The views expressed are personal.)