LISBON: Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Friday that he hoped a vaccine passport, allowing people to travel freely if they can prove they have been vaccinated, will be in place by the summer.

"We are defendants of a measure on European scale, and it is with this objective that we work as presidents with the European Commission. The hope we all have is that by the summer it will be possible for this document to exist," he said, speaking after a meeting with European leaders.

Portugal holds the EU's rotating presidency.

Faced with a pandemic that has killed more than 900,000 people in Europe and thrust the continent into its deepest recession, EU leaders agreed to work on vaccine certificates.