It has often been said that a crisis brings out the true nature of people. I don’t know how much of that is true, but reading Alfred Sant’s proposal to do away with intellectual property and snatch the Covid-19 science from the hands of the companies which developed it points to that saying.

Sant’s proposal is short-sighted to say the least. What motivation will anyone have to develop cures if patents become questionable by politicians? Who will save us in another pandemic?

Handling this pandemic requires the best performance of the channels that used to deliver so far, not a total erasure of present guarantees. Certainly, we need to think laterally too as the pandemic requires swift action both to safeguard our health and to steer our economy out of this thick jungle.

The discussion about the covid-19 vaccine passport calls for a good dose of lateral thinking too. In a discussion in Brussels last week I was puzzled to hear a number of interventions finding objection to a Europe-wide vaccination passport due to this creating some sort of societal discrimination between those who are vaccinated and those not vaccinated. Some Belgian, German and French politicians believe that the corona-safe  passports for some Europeans to travel to Malta would be too much of a discrimination between them.

I fail to see any logic in this. First of all, the likelihood is that those vaccinated earlier than others were deemed to be a prior priority either because they were more exposed to the risks, or because they were more vulnerable. What’s wrong with reverting the fates and affording a little advantage to this latter category by facilitating their travel?

Europe is such an evolved democracy, but this pandemic has also revealed how you can have too much of a good thing. The contact tracing data protection concerns were an early pointer to that. Hard-line data protection advocates were a significant stumbling block to securing a Europe wide contact tracing application which could have reduced the pandemic’s infection rate. I will be the first to argue for data protection rights in regular times, but these times are not regular, and we are required to put our needs and rights in a hierarchy if we are to come out of this anytime soon.

Malta, like Cyprus and Greece has expressed itself in favour of a European Corona passport system. With a revised deficit prediction by Government and the number of cases in March touching the 300 mark, we now need to revise the optimistic previsions of a regular 2021 summer with ample tourist arrivals. By the looks of it right now, opening a corridor for vaccinated tourists will be a lifeline to our tourism industry, sustaining thousands of jobs and businesses.

I have spent the last 18 years of my life in European settings and have vouched for European solutions in a myriad of Maltese issues. I believe, however, that there comes a time where national solutions may be needed as precursors to European ones. While Europe lingers on to decide on a corona-safe-passport, Malta should take the initiative of accepting vaccination proof as a waiver to any other test and hence facilitating inward travel from all EU member states.

This would be in itself an expression of European trust in other state’s vaccination programmes, which we know fall within the same European commission joint acquisitions. The huge variety in the present swabbing and quarantine arrangements in different European countries are in themselves a pointer that it would be risky to bet on harmonisation for a European passport in time for the Maltese tourism summer. Malta, Italy, France and Germany all have their own arrangements without any standard right or obligation. National health and economic considerations will continue to guide national behaviours.

Of course, once Europe manages to come up with one format we should be the first to align with it, but meanwhile, we should take the first measures to secure a safe tourism corridor to our islands for the next summer – by accepting proof of vaccination as equivalent to a negative swab test. Over 30 million potential tourists have already been vaccinated in the continent. Over 50 million are expected to receive their second dose by the end of April. We need to attract this market to our islands to safely reignite one of the most important motors of the Maltese economy.

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Peter Agius MEP candidate