EU leaders struggle to find common ground on COVID travel rules
BELGIUM,AUSTRALIA, FRANCE: Divisions within the European Union have deepened over travel rules to curb the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, after Italy and Greece followed Portugal and Ireland in announcing additional curbs on travellers from other EU states.
The EU’s 27 member states have been debating for weeks how to coordinate travel policy, with the aim of containing the virus without disproportionately disrupting travel within the border-free European Schengen area.
However, Italy said on Tuesday that from December 16 until the end of January it would require all travellers from EU countries to show a negative test on arrival, even if they are vaccinated. The unvaccinated will face a five-day quarantine.
If applied strictly, the rules – which take effect on Thursday – would effectively restore frontier checks at Italy’s land borders, echoing measures adopted by EU countries at the start of the pandemic.
“I have only seen that closing borders is in any case not the solution,” Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told reporters as he arrived for a summit of EU leaders in Brussels.
Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said freedom of travel inside the EU must not end. The EU introduced its COVID-19 certificate in July. It allows holders to travel freely across EU borders if they have been vaccinated against the disease, have recovered or have had a recent negative test.
The European Commission proposed on November 25 a tweak to the COVID pass that would make proof of vaccination sufficient for unhindered movement across the EU for nine months after completion of the primary vaccination cycle.
The proposal has not yet been approved by member states.
Portugal introduced a requirement for additional negative tests on the very day the Commission made its proposal. Ireland mirrored that move a few days later. Greece announced the same measure yesterday, to take effect on December 19.
Meanwhile, Australian authorities on Friday rushed to track down hundreds who attended a Taylor Swift album party in Sydney last week that has become a super-spreading event as cases in the country hit a new pandemic high for the second straight day.
COVID-19 infections, including the new, more transmissible Omicron variant, have been spreading in pubs and nightclubs as social distancing curbs ease after higher vaccination levels. Despite the surge in cases, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia had entered “a different phase of the pandemic” and ruled out lockdowns to contain the spread of the virus.
Neighbouring Victoria, meanwhile, is on alert after an Omicron-infected person attended a busy pub and hotel in Melbourne. Australia has reported around 243,000 cases and 2,134 deaths since the pandemic began.
Meanwhile, some 110,000 fake health passes are in circulation in France, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday, with hundreds of investigations launched against makers and users of the forged documents.
– THE BANGKOK POST, THE MALAY MAIL,ARAB NEWS