Spain is one the few EU countries that started issuing Digital Travel Passports weeks before the initiative will become mandatory on July 1 across the bloc.
So far, the country has issued 2.7 million travel passports that have further eased freedom of movement with its QR code system.
Since June 8, travelers bearing the digital document only need to scan it at Spanish airports to bypass most airport screenings and long lines. This rather simple procedure allows them to avoid quarantining or having to present a physical COVID-19 test result.
Spain works on adding more functionalities to this certificate with the aim of offering electronic and hard-copy certificates by the end of this week when the travel passport will be robust enough to accredit vaccination status, negative COVID-19 results, and recovery proof.
To date, Catalunya seems to be winning the digital passport race with 681,600 issued certificates followed by Andalucia with 462,394. Other key autonomous communities have not reported their figures yet.
Some have expressed concerns about these travel passports becoming mandatory for EU travelers. There are no reasons to believe they will.
The unified EU Digital COVID Certificate was a strategy created to streamline travel in all EU Member States and to ensure that COVID-19 restrictions currently enforced in most countries can be lifted in a coordinated manner.
Those who are still not certain about sharing their personal health details with the government and do not know if travel without the digital travel passport will be possible after July 1, have nothing to be worried about. Travel will operate under the same restrictions it has been operating so far.
However, it is expected that loads of holidaymakers will start traveling this date so airport screenings could be slower for non-bearers.
Spain is currently speeding up vaccination on people aged 30-39 so they can avoid a future spread of the new Delta variant in the territory.