EU warns six countries over Covid travel curbs
The European Commission told six EU countries to ease travel and border restrictions yesterday as unilateral moves to combat the spread of new coronavirus variants had hit the flow of goods and risked shutting parts of the FrancoGerman border.
The EU executive said it had given Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Sweden 10 days to justify the restrictions, which Justice Commissioner
Didier Reynders said had “gone too far”.
He said the 27 EU countries should adopt a co-ordinated approach to all measures taken in relation to the free movement of people and goods.
A European Commission spokesman warned that the bloc risked “fragmentation and disruptions to free movement and to supply chains – something we have witnessed again the past weeks”.
Berlin, having introduced checks on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Austria, was in talks with Paris on averting similar measures in France’s eastern Moselle region that borders Germany.
The French region has experienced a surge in a more easily transmissible coronavirus variant, as have Austria’s Tyrol and the Czech Republic.
With EU national leaders due to discuss health, travel and border challenges tomorrow and on Friday, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called for “common standards for travel and the transport of goods within the EU to ensure the functioning of the single market”.
In a patchwork response to the spread of more contagious coronavirus mutations, nine EU countries have reinstated border controls in what is normally a free travel zone.
The Commission focused on six, including Germany and Belgium, where additional restrictions on movement include a complete ban on non-essential trips in and out of the country.
The Brussels-based executive said quarantine was effective in discouraging leisure travel and transport workers should be exempted from quarantine or testing.
But Michael Roth, Germany’s
Europe minister, defended Berlin’s actions.
“These measures obviously put a massive strain on border regions ... but the protection of our citizens is paramount,” he said.
French Europe minister Clement Beaune told Reuters that Berlin and Paris had given themselves 48 hours to co-ordinate health measures such as increased testing in the Moselle region to avoid shutting their border there.
“Our cross-border workers need to move around for their work and daily lives,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron says internal borders between EU countries should remain open, and clashed with Germany last year after Berlin closed frontiers during the first wave of the pandemic.
Germany now aims to avoid the strict border measures that were in place in 2020, sources in Berlin said as the Czech Republic asked for EU help to ease German border controls.
Southern countries like Spain hope that vaccination passports could revive their tourism industry this summer by allowing people to travel more freely.