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Passengers at London's Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras International
Photo: TOLGA AKMEN / AFP
In view of new, particularly contagious variants of the corona virus, the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo wants to propose a ban on tourist and other unnecessary travel at the EU summit.
“Returning travelers can bring the virus in their suitcase.
That's why we have to temporarily ban certain trips, ”said the liberal politician on the Flemish radio VRT.
De Croo stressed on Wednesday, however, that the borders should not be closed in principle.
The movement of goods and cross-border commuters should be allowed to continue crossing the borders.
At the beginning of the corona pandemic, a number of EU countries closed their borders or introduced controls in an uncoordinated manner.
There were traffic jams that were tens of kilometers long and the flow of goods was interrupted.
Chancellor Angela Merkel recently did not rule out renewed border controls.
However, they would prefer to agree on a common approach with the neighboring countries.
Today, Thursday (6 p.m.), the EU heads of state and government are discussing a common line in the fight against the coronavirus at a video summit.
De Croo said that citizens had been kindly asked in recent months not to travel.
Nevertheless, 160,000 people traveled between Christmas and New Year.
Therefore one must now ban the unnecessary trips.
After Christmas, the number of new infections increased significantly.
De Croo nevertheless stated: "The corona situation in our country is better than in other countries, but the smallest spark can heat up the numbers again." According to the latest information from the Belgian health department Sciensano, 248 new infections have occurred in Belgium in the past two weeks 100,000 inhabitants registered.
Most recently there were a total of almost 2000 infections daily across the country.
In October the value was at times ten times as high.
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beb / dpa