An instrument of unusual significance is quietly on its way to becoming law in Europe: the proposal for a ‘Digital Green Certificate’ .
Freedom of movement is perhaps the European Union’s most cherished achievement, certainly among northerners seeking a visa-free sun holiday.
The recent EU threat to impose a ‘vaccine border’ between Northern Ireland and the Republic imperilled that peace.
Meanwhile, in the last months many courts including the Lisbon Court of Appeal and Administrative Court of Vienna have held that PCR testing is unreliable and cannot be relied on for determining infection; a physician must perform a proper medical diagnosis.
There are the financial implications of a universal border control regime which involves the constant handling of that most sensitive of data types: medical records.
The Northern Irish remain citizens of Europe without the Union, and will not accept being checked upon entry into what about a million of them consider their home: the neighbouring member state of Ireland.
Indeed, the commission grants itself power to reapply the DGC if the WHO declares another pandemic, which on 4 May 2009 it redefined as a spread of “cases”, rather than “deaths”.