The ambassadors of the EU member states on Friday approved a proposal from the European Commission providing for a new mapping of the areas most affected by the virus and stricter movement restrictions for these regions, the EU executive said.
Read also: Faced with Covid-19, Europe restricts freedom of movement
Faced with the threat of new variants of the coronavirus, the Commission presented on Monday these recommendations - non-binding - aimed at "
strongly discouraging non-essential travel, while avoiding border closures or general travel bans
".
They plan to add a new category of zones to the European health map published each week by the agency responsible for monitoring the epidemic, ECDC.
These “
dark red
” areas correspond to those with a Covid-19 incidence rate greater than or equal to 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days.
For these most at risk areas, tests and quarantine should apply even for essential travel.
However, certain exemptions are foreseen for inhabitants of border areas and workers in the transport sector.
According to a preliminary ECDC map seen by AFP on Thursday, fourteen EU countries have at least one region classified as “
dark red
”.
Additional measures are possible
The Commission is trying to coordinate the measures of the Member States, anxious to avoid a repetition of the scenario of last spring, when the cascading border closures had caused chaos in the movement of people and goods within the EU and Schengen area.
Portugal, the country which holds the six-monthly presidency of the EU, said during the meeting of ambassadors that additional national measures were possible, a diplomatic source said.
This country, where contaminations are exploding, itself decided Thursday to ban non-essential travel abroad for fifteen days.
Belgium has taken an identical measure since Wednesday, until March 1.
Germany for its part is considering a drastic reduction in air traffic with countries it considers to be the most affected by the new variants of the coronavirus, including Portugal.
The European Commissioner for Justice, the Belgian Didier Reynders, questioned on Friday about the measure taken by his country, considered that the fact that it applies in general, without taking into account the health situation of the area of origin or destination, was "
not in accordance
" with the recommendations.
"
We would like (this measure) not to be extended and especially if measures are taken, they fit better into the recommendations,
" he said on La Première radio (RTBF).