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The tourism minister calls for a gradual opening of the border.
© APA
The EU Commission wants to urge Member States to gradually lift the border controls introduced in the Corona crisis. In its recommendations, which it would like to present on Wednesday, the Brussels authority does not call for an immediate return to the Schengen area, which is actually free of control. Tourism Minister Elisabeth Köstinger (ÖVP) was satisfied with the EU recommendation.
The agency will present “guidelines” on Wednesday recommending “a gradual and gradual lifting” of national controls, the Commission’s director general, Monique Pariat, said in the European Parliament on Tuesday. Therefore, the primary goal is to expand exemptions for employees and family members across the border.
The EU Commission also wants to present a package for the travel and tourism industry on Wednesday, whose business has practically stalled as a result of the Corona crisis, also because many Member States have made cross-border travel in the EU impossible through border controls. The EU Commission regularly notes that controls affect not only freedom of travel in the Schengen area, but also the functioning of the EU internal market.
One goal of the planned guidelines is to allow more workers to cross the border, Pariat said in the interior committee of the EU parliament. Until now, this has often only been possible for groups whose professions are considered indispensable in the pandemic, for example in the health sector. The Commission wants to ensure that this also applies to temporary workers and more workers whose jobs require regular border crossings.
Furthermore, the commission wants to alleviate “the difficult and painful situation” of families who live on both sides of the borders and were separated by controls, Pariat said. They should be given the opportunity to see family members and travel back. However, any relief would have to depend on the development of the epidemic in the respective areas, stressed the French EU official.
According to a report in the “Handelsblatt” (Tuesday edition), the Commission wants to warn in its recommendation not to open the borders too quickly and without the necessary accompanying measures, as this could cause a “sudden increase in infections”. The authority wants a “carefully calibrated procedure”: controls must first relax in regions where the number of infections on both sides of the border improved comparably.
As soon as a country has reduced the circulation of the virus, the general restrictions should be replaced by specific measures, according to the recommendations. First, controls in countries with a similar virus situation should be relaxed. There must be sufficient evidence and hospital capacity. The chains of infection must be tracked effectively; Distance requirements are met.
The Commission had already asked Member States on Friday to extend the freeze on entry to the EU’s external borders for a further month until June 15. He did not rule out a new extension and said that restrictions on entry into Europe could only be removed if controls at internal borders were lifted.
Tourism Minister Köstinger is satisfied with the recommendation of the EU Commission to gradually reopen the borders between member states. “The EU is following our arguments that we have been making for weeks to gradually regain freedom of travel,” Köstinger said Tuesday.
“Closed borders cannot be permanent, we have always pressed to consider how and under what conditions borders can be reopened,” added the minister.
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