The European Union’s parliament has voted to extend the bloc’s regime of COVID passes until 2023 despite harsh criticism from some elected representatives.
It appears that COVID-19 is far from over, at least for European citizens anyway, with the parliament of the transnational bloc voting to extend the use of COVID passes until 2023 at the soonest, in a move that has been described as “absolutely despicable” by one critic.
Under the measure ostensibly aimed at curbing the spread of the Chinese Coronavirus, those who have either been jabbed against the disease within the last 270 days or bolstered at any point are entitled to the pass, while those who have recovered from the virus within the last 180 days are also entitled to the document ensuring free travel within the bloc.
UK Finally Terminating Domestic Covid Pass System Next Weekhttps://t.co/BhW5ELM0va
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 6, 2022
While the actual use of the passes has largely fallen out of favour both domestically and internationally, according to a report by Euronews, officials within the union appear adamant that the pandemic is not over and that an extension of the lockdown well into next year is “reasonable”, with MEPs voting 432 to 130 to extend the measure.
This is despite protests from some MEPs, one of whom has described the parliament deciding to back extending the measure as “absolutely despicable”.
“It is absolutely despicable that MEPs would not stand up to protect and defend the natural human rights of people to speak, move and make decisions on their own bodily autonomy,” Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes told Breitbart Europe.
“The Digital Covid Certificate was unnecessary from the start and eventually dangerous as it gave people a false confidence regarding an infection of relatively low medical risk,” he continued.
“This Chinafication of Europe policy must draw to a close very quickly,” he went on to say, having also emphasised that people should stop voting for political parties who support the COVID pass, the extension of which now only needs to be approved by the European Council in order to come into force.
Big Brother: Government Planned ‘Dystopian Surveillance System’ to Fight COVID – Bookhttps://t.co/X3A4VA5nGb
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 4, 2022
While Europe appears to be adamant that it is necessary to keep the restrictions on its own citizens in place, many of the bloc’s member states seem to have polar opposite views, having long since scrapped the vast majority of their Anti-COVID measures.
Nations including Denmark, Ireland and Poland have all scrapped their lockdown measures, with the Danish Prime Minister emphasising that it was time to “smile again”.
“The situation in Denmark is that we have this decoupling between infections and intensive care patients, and it is mainly due to the large attachment among Danes to revaccination,” the country’s health minister said regarding the lifting of measures back in January.
“That is the reason why it is safe [to loosen measures] and the right thing to do now,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the bloc’s history of implementing the lockdown measure has been marred by controversies and gaffs, with one security flaw in the system even allowing the likes of the fiction Spongebob Squarepants and Mickey Mouse to be registered as vaccinated within the EU.
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