Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petrisek said on Tuesday the Covid passports, the digital vaccination certificates which the European Commission is expected to present on Wednesday, should not be a "means of discrimination."

With the tourist season approaching, the certificates should enable vaccinated people to travel to European destinations during the summer, but there are fears that they could become a means of discrimination.

“To us, it’s important for this to be as simple for citizens as possible, for ensuring protection of personal data, and we also want the COVID passport not to be some means of discrimination against persons who don’t have the possibility to be vaccinated,” Petrisek said in Daruvar, where he visited ethnic Czech communities who have a centuries-long presence in that Croatian town.

Last year 500,000 Czech travelers visited Croatia during the coronavirus crisis, Croatian Foreign Minister, Gordan Grlic-Radman, said. “The Czech like to come to the Croatian Adriatic and I hope that, in line with our slogan ‘Safe stay in Croatia’, they will come this year too,” he added.

In recent weeks, the Czech Republic has been among the hardest hit countries and many regional hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid patients.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic tweeted last week that Croatia was willing to hospitalise ten patients from the Czech Republic and ten from Slovakia.

Petrisek thanked him for the offer of assistance.

“The Czech government is going through a really difficult phase of the COVID-19 epidemic. The next few days could be critical and that’s why I’m very pleased that solidarity is being shown in this difficult situation,” Petrisek said.