The EU “strongly” recommends that member states require negative covid tests for travelers from China

The European Union "strongly" recommends its member states to require negative covid tests for "all passengers from China" carried out "no more than 48 hours before departure" from the country.

This has been the result of the meeting held by the committee created three years ago to coordinate the response of the Twenty-seven to the coronavirus pandemic.

The final communiqué on this point does not speak of an agreement, but of a firm recommendation.

However, the measure is already approved by countries such as Spain, Italy or France.

Yes, there is talk of an agreement to advise the use of masks for travelers coming from China to Europe and also to be careful and adopt personal and sanitary hygiene measures.

Once again, there is talk of a firm recommendation on the analysis of wastewater from planes from China and the advice to carry out random tests among passengers arriving in Europe from the Asian giant is added.

In a meeting that was longer than expected, more than six hours, the representatives of the different States have followed, for the most part, the script prepared by the experts the day before.

On the possibility of claiming a negative covid test before leaving China, already on Tuesday the words of the Commission spokesperson spoke of an "overwhelming majority", although they did not agree.

In addition to the recommendations to be adopted by the Member States, the Integrated Device for Political Crisis Response (DIRPC), the official name of the committee, has promised to control the situation of the pandemic "in the European Union and its development in China, including the level of data sharing."

This last sentence, written with careful language, is a clear reference to the doubts that exist about the data that Beijing provides on the progress of the covid in the country.

The effectiveness of the measures will be analyzed in a next meeting in the middle of the month.

The possibility of countries requiring travelers from China to have negative covid tests carried out before leaving has upset Beijing.

“We do not believe that the entry restriction measures that some countries have taken against China have a scientific basis.

Some are disproportionate and unacceptable.

We firmly reject the use of covid measures for political purposes and we will take the corresponding measures in response to different situations based on the principle of reciprocity," Mao Sing, a spokesman for the country's Ministry of Health, had warned on Tuesday.

This position clashes with that maintained by the Asian giant until just a few weeks ago, when it decided to make a sudden swerve in its zero covid policy.

During the last three years, China has applied very harsh measures against the pandemic, decreeing massive confinements or prohibiting its citizens from leaving the country.

In addition, those who entered the country were not only required to have negative covid tests, but also forced them to maintain quarantines of a week or more in hotels equipped for that purpose, where tests were carried out on travelers.

The recommendations made known this Wednesday have been formulated in a short time: on December 29, the European Commission convened a first meeting at expert level and, only six days later, the joint decisions - in part, it is true, because several Countries, such as Spain, had already adopted some of the measures on their own—they were agreed upon in a third meeting, that of the Integrated Device for Political Response to Crises (DIRPC), in the hands of the Council and, therefore, of the rotating presidency Swedish this semester.

This device, created after the global crises —political and natural— that caused the terrorist attacks in the 2000s and the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, allows the EU to better coordinate a European response and, above all, speed it up, by facilitate and make decision-making among the various instances more flexible.

The DRPIC is currently in “full activation mode” – which allows the development of concrete and coordinated EU response measures in the round tables led by the EU presidency – both for the covid-19 pandemic, since March 2020, like for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and migration issues.