Europe’s borders reopen for
BORDERS have opened up across Europe after three months of coronavirus closures that began so chaotically in March.
But many restrictions persist, it is unclear how keen Europeans will be to travel this summer and the continent is still closed to Americans, Asians and other international tourists.
Border checks for most Europeans were dropped overnight on Sunday in Germany, France and elsewhere, nearly two weeks after Italy opened its frontiers.
The European Union’s 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, are not expected to start opening to visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly much later.
Announcing yesterday’s reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French president Emmanuel Macron said it is time “to turn the page of the first act of the crisis” and “rediscover our taste for freedom”.
But he warned: “This doesn’t mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard . ... The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.”
Even inside Europe, there is caution after more than 182,000 virus-linked deaths.
Europe has had more than two million of the world’s 7.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
“We have got the pandemic under control [but] the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment,” Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday as he announced that his hard-hit country is moving forward its opening to European travellers by 10 days to June 21.
“The threat is still real. The virus is still out there,” he said.
Still, the need to get Europe’s tourism industry up and running again is also urgent for countries such as Spain and Greece as the economic fallout of the crisis multiplies.
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged that “a lot will depend on whether people feel comfortable to travel and whether we can project Greece as a safe destination”.
In a trial run, Spain allowed thousands of Germans to fly to its Balearic Islands starting yesterday – waiving its 14-day quarantine for the group.
The idea is to test out best practices in the coronavirus era.
“This pilot programme will help us learn a lot for what lies ahead in the coming months,” Mr Sanchez said.
“We want our country, which is already known as a world-class tourist destination, to be recognised as also a secure destination.”
Europe’s reopening is not a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March, when panicked, uncoordinated border closures caused traffic jams that stretched for miles. Still, it is a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere.
Several countries are not opening up yet to those hard hit in the crisis.