EU grapples with border curbs as coronavirus spreads

 

FILE PHOTO: A road sign reading "traffic control" is pictured near the location where medics check the temperatures of people coming from Italy due to the spreading of the coronavirus at the Brenner Pass border between Italy and Austria, March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert/File Photo

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Any border restrictions imposed inside the European Union’s zone of free travel to contain the spread of the coronavirus must be coordinated to ensure they are not counterproductive, EU ministers said on Friday.

 

After the coronavirus outbreak in China late last year, the virus is now spreading rapidly in Europe. Measures against it have included the Czech Republic and Slovakia tightening their borders and Austria introducing border checks to deny entry from Italy, the country hit the hardest by the coronavirus in Europe.

 

Swedish interior minister Mikael Damberg said before a meeting in Brussels that countries introducing tighter border measures must be careful not to aggravate the healthcare emergency.

 

“You have to take the right measures at the right time,” he said. “They must be aware that (the) transportation system has to work for food and healthcare materials - the kind of things that are important for European countries so we don’t make problems for each other handling the crisis.”

 

Sweden has had some border checks in place inside what should normally be the EU’s Schengen zone of free travel since a sharp increase in arrivals of refugees and migrants from the Middle East in 2015-16.

 

Back then, several EU countries shut down their borders to prevent people from moving across the bloc toward wealthy states such as Germany and Sweden to seek asylum.

 

The Schengen zone all but collapsed and several countries still have some form of border controls in place years later.

 

The EU’s top interior official, Commissioner Ylva Johansson, said that any border curbs must be “coordinated, operational, proportionate and effective”.

 

Austria has also introduced border checks to deny entry from Italy, the country hit the hardest by the coronavirus spread in Europe.

 

“We should try to find a European agreement. I don’t think we should shut borders,” said Luxembourg’s interior minister Jean Asselborn.

 

The EU’s economic powerhouse, Germany, has not acted to tighten its borders for now, It has left its regions to decide on school closures and announced steps to cushion the economic hit of the pandemic.

 

But Spain stepped up its response significantly on Thursday as infections soared, placing four towns under quarantine. It has also ordered a ban on flights from Italy.

 

Croatia’s interior minister, Davor Bozinovic, echoed the call for more EU coordination.

 

“We are too close to each other. If we were acting in one way, it would be much better for all us,” he said.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-13

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15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The Schengen zone all but collapsed

why does that not surprise me.....every country for itself when the chips are down and unions are no longer workable....human nature 101

4 hours ago, car720 said:

Oh this is SO European a reaction to a serious situation.

Yeah. To be honest it makes me smile. I've given up all hope on the EU a long time ago and these kinds of stupid policies will eventually be the downfall of (at least) Western Europe. It seems at least the Eastern European states have some sense left in them, perhaps because at one time they received dictates from Moscow and the dictates from Brussel are quite reminiscent of that period in history and they don't like to repeat this.

22 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The Schengen zone all but collapsed and several countries still have some form of border controls in place years later.

So that Freedom Of Movement idea is not such a good one, even for those EU members. 

Pillars of the EU falling all over.  

Freedom of movement is an anachronism from the 70s/80s idealistic political EU fantasy land booklet. This ideal has caused more harm and discourse than any other of the EU rules. It simply doesn't work and the United States of Europe (which this rule was devised to facilitate into being) just isn't going to fly and just look and the cluster-fc#k of a situation it has created. Attempting to turn European countries into provinces of the superstate is not a popular idea (too fast and too much history) ...especially when illegal economic aliens think they can just cherry-pick their destination once they have walked over some far flung border and individual countries do not have the final word on things. The sooner this free movement nonsense is cancelled and the whole EU brought into the present ...the better. And some dinosaurs still don't capiche why the British wanted control back of their borders.