AN post on Facebook states: “Compulsory vaccination for the EU has just gone unnoticed.”
The publication adds that the “European Council has amended resolution 2361 and no longer opposes compulsory vaccination.”
It is also stated that “digital currency” and “digital ID” will be imposed “on all EU citizens”, and ATMs will be replaced by “QR code ATMs… to make cash completely useless in 18 months”.
This is false
The author of the Facebook post. links to an articletitled “Digital Tyranny: The EU Covid Digital Vaccine Certificate Framework”, but the article does not seem to support the points made in the text of the Facebook post.
In fact, the page claims that it previously “mistakenly referred to a European Council Amendment to Resolution 2361 that ‘no longer opposes compulsory vaccination.'”
An archived version of the pageCaptured by the Wayback Machine on April 3, it shows that the article was previously titled “Vaccination Mandatory for the EU Just Gone Under the Hood” and featured eight bullet points that exactly mirror the claims made in the Facebook post.
Resolution 2361
As pointed out in the updated article (but not in the Facebook post), it is incorrect to state that the European Council modified Resolution 2361.
In the first place, Resolution 2361 was not approved by the european councila group made up of heads of state or government of the countries of the European Union (EU) that defines the overall political direction and priorities of the EU.
Resolution 2361 was approved more than a year ago by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a completely different organization to the European Council.
The Council of Europe is a human rights organization that says 46 European countries as members, including all 27 EU members.
Resolution 2361 sets out how member states can work towards equitable distribution of covid-19 vaccines and ensure their implementation as quickly as possible while maintaining public confidence in their safety.
There is no reference in the resolution to removing objections to mandatory vaccinations. In fact, section 7.3.1 states that PACE member states and the EU must “ensure that citizens are informed that vaccination is not compulsory and that no one is under political, social or other pressure to be vaccinated if they do not wish to do so”.
The resolution also does not mention digital currency, cash, or QR codes, and there is no clear source for this claim on Facebook. The archived version of the article shared on Facebook attributes his claims to a message in Gmail “from a very reliable source”, but no further information is provided and this is omitted from the updated article.
An EU official confirmed to Reuters: “There is a confusion since the resolution comes from another institution, not from an EU institution. It comes from the Council of Europe, the human rights organization, which is different from the European Council that brings together the 27 leaders of the EU.”
The official added that “there has been no reference to compulsory vaccinations” within the European Council.
However, in December 1, 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was time for the EU to “think about compulsory vaccination”. And some countries within the EU currently I have either previously had vaccination mandate forms.
Image courtesy of Daniel Schludi
Reference-fullfact.org