The EU wants common travel rules, but is completely in the blue if Norway will change the advice – VG

Norway has some of the strictest travel rules in Europe and has colored most of Europe red. But since all countries in Europe have different rules about who can travel where, the EU would rather have an ending.

That is why the European Council adopted recommendations for common standards on Tuesday. However, for Norway to comply with this, we must:

• Reintroduce green earth, which the government eliminated earlier this year.
• Evaluate individual regions within a country separately.
• Relax a bit about the requirement of where you can travel without quarantine.

What the EU adopted today is only a recommendation, not a requirement. Still, it can force countries to change where you can travel and when you need to be quarantined.

What Norway will do with the new recommendations is completely in blue.

– It is too early to say if there will be changes to Norwegian measures and travel advice, writes Health Minister Bent Høie in an email to VG.

What is the difference?

The proposal for common travel rules first put forward by the EU Commission would be a drastic opening for travel, compared to what Norway has today. But before the proposal was adopted, it was significantly diluted.

While Norway uses the colors yellow and red today, and is quarantined only for reds, the EU will have a traffic light system with green, orange and red countries.

The biggest differences are:

1. Green earth

Norway stopped using green countries earlier this year, when the government wanted to point out that there is no “green light” to travel abroad. But the EU wants green countries where it can travel freely, without restrictions. Four Finnish regions for which Norway has entered quarantine today would turn green under the EU definition.

– Do you want to reintroduce the color green? Yes or no.

– This is something that the government considers on a regular basis, responds the Minister of Health.

2. A tip for Barcelona, ​​another for Alicante

Currently, Norway colors some Swedish regions yellow and others red. However, for all of Spain there is only one color. This is not how the EU proposal will be.

If you want to prevent people from traveling freely, you should have restrictions for people from a certain region, rather than an entire land area, the recommendation says. If, for example, there is a massive infection in the Alicante region, then this area should be closed instead of closing all of Spain.

But the Minister of Health also cannot answer whether they will begin to carry out regional assessments for more countries in Europe. So only parts of France and Germany are colored red, for example.

– The government will also return to this, answers Høie.

Less red areas

With the EU definition of how much infection you must have to become a red country, there are only five regions in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland that would be red: Stockholm, Uppsala, Kronoberg, Blekinge, and Vasaa. Displays figures from VG’s travel tips overview on Tuesday.

Norway has today colored almost all of Sweden red:

• But what do orange and red mean? The original proposal of the European Commission said that quarantine should only be required for red countries. As the EU definition of what is red is considerably less strict, it would be a drastic change for Norway. But the proposal was diluted. Now a country can choose whether to introduce mandatory tests or quarantine for countries it defines as orange or red.

If Norway chooses to switch to the EU colors, but runs the quarantine for the orange and red countries, we can end up with a result quite similar to what we have today.

– With so much freedom of choice, will there really be a more equitable and clearer travel advice regulation in Europe?

– It remains to be seen if it will be easier for the individual traveler, but the idea of ​​harmonizing country measures at the border is a good one and Norway therefore supports such harmonization, responds the Minister of Health.