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The European Union executive released a lifeline to Britain on Tuesday after it was stranded in Covid-19 isolation, and recommended that EU members reduce border closures to allow freight to resume and the people come home for Christmas.
Much of the world closed its borders to Britain after a mutated variant of the new coronavirus was discovered that was rapidly spreading across southern England, halting some trade with the rest of Europe and leaving truckers stranded.
With queues of trucks snaking on the horizon in England and supermarket shelves dismantled just days before Christmas, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quick to get French President Emmanuel Macron to lift the ban on freight transport. from Great Britain.
Johnson and his advisers said the mutated variant of the coronavirus, which could be up to 70% more transmittable, was spreading rapidly, but had been identified because British scientists were so efficient at genomic surveillance.
Britain has been trying for at least 24 hours to reach an agreement with France to allow the Dover-Calais route to open.
The European Commission recommended that non-essential travel to and from Britain be discouraged, but said people heading home should be allowed to do so, provided they undergo a Covid-19 test or quarantine for 10 days.
“General travel bans should not prevent thousands of EU and UK citizens from returning to their homes,” said European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders in a statement.
The recommendations are designed to establish common rules within the EU and ambassadors will consider adopting them on Tuesday. However, border controls are governed by national policy, so each EU country may have its own rules.
One option is to implement massive Covid-19 tests for truck drivers, although such tests generally take 24-48 hours to get a result, so it was not immediately clear how fast the trucks could move again with the days of Christmas.
The discovery of the new strain, just months before vaccines are expected to be widely available, sowed a new wave of panic in a pandemic that has killed around 1.7 million people worldwide and more. than 67,000 in Britain.
The main concern is that the variant is significantly more transmissible than the original strain.
Scientists say there is no evidence that vaccines currently being rolled out in the UK – made by Pfizer and BioNTech – or other injections of Covid-19 in development do not protect against this variant, known as the B.1.1 lineage. 7
Food supply concerns
The UK is effectively quarantined from Covid-19 just nine days before it secede from the EU after a transitional period, considered one of the biggest changes in British post-WWII history.
Countries in Europe and beyond have suspended travel from Britain since the weekend. Germany imposed a ban on United Kingdom travelers from Tuesday that could remain in effect until January 6.
Cases of the new strain have also been detected in a few other countries, including Denmark and Italy. Experts said the prevalence found in Britain could be due to better detection.
Britain’s border crisis sparked some panic buying in the country: shoppers stripped some supermarkets’ shelves of turkey, toilet paper rolls, bread and vegetables.
While the government said there was enough food for Christmas, market leader Tesco and No. 2 player Sainsbury’s said food supplies would suffer if the disruption continued.
Stranded drivers
Britain said 650 trucks were stacked on the M20 in Kent, southern England, and 873 at nearby Manston Airport, which is now used as a giant truck park.
While trucks can still cross from France into Great Britain, they cannot return, which is why European truck drivers are extremely reluctant to travel.
Border closures were causing headaches across Europe, especially for those trying to transport perishable food. Milk suppliers were already trying to boost Britain’s milk stocks ahead of Brexit.
“The plan was to stock up in the next 10 days, so if there is a Brexit problem, there are stocks for January,” said Alexander Anton, secretary general of the European Dairy Association. “Now he can’t find a transport company to send a driver to the UK.”
Lactalis, the world’s largest dairy company, has had to reschedule some truck deliveries to Britain due to the border closure, a spokesman for the French group said.
When the sun came up, hundreds of stranded drivers waiting to be allowed to cross into France by ferry or in the Channel Tunnel made tea and coffee after a night on the M20 motorway.
The drivers, some insulting Johnson and Macron, said they just wanted to get home in time for Christmas.
