Astypalea, Greece
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LONDON – Looking for holiday in Greece or Spain? You could wait a while.
European leaders are expected to say on Thursday that all non-essential travel must remain restricted, as Covid’s health situation remains “serious” across the continent, according to a document seen by CNBC.
The 27 heads of state of the European Union will meet practically on Thursday afternoon to discuss the current state of the pandemic in the region. The EU is still one of the most affected parts of the world by coronavirus, with a number of nations still blocked or with strict social restrictions in place. At the same time, vaccination efforts have had a rough start and some are wondering whether the EU will reach its goal of vaccinating 70% of its adult population by summer.
“The epidemiological situation remains serious and the new variants pose additional challenges. We must therefore support strict restrictions while stepping up efforts to accelerate the supply of vaccines,” European leaders are expected to say, according to the draft document.
So far, there have been more than 21 million cases and more than 515,000 deaths caused by Covid-19 in Europe, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Since the end of 2020, health authorities have identified a number of new variants of the virus, which are considered more widespread and infectious.
New variants have become the dominant strain in many Member States.
Charles Michel
President of the European Council
The ongoing medical emergency is particularly acute in the Czech Republic and parts of Latvia, Sweden, Spain and Portugal.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, European Council President Charles Michel, who chairs the summits, said: “New variants have become the dominant strain in many Member States. This means improving our sequencing capacity and preparing the ground for updating vaccines.”
Given the health crisis, European leaders are not yet inclined to ease travel restrictions.
“For the time being, non-essential travel should be restricted,” the document is expected to say.
This will be bad news for countries heavily dependent on tourism. Greece, for example, has pushed the EU to agree on a kind of vaccine passport so that it can more easily reopen its tourism industry in time for the summer season.
However, leaders seem far from agreeing with this idea for the time being. Some heads of state consider that it is too early to consider a vaccination passport, because the development of vaccines is still at such an early stage.
Rickard Gustafson, CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Thursday that vaccine passports or similar identifications “could help reopen the world, however … I’m worried this may not be a national standard, we have to be an international standard “.
In addition, for this idea to work, Gustafson said it must be applied to “all other means of transport”.
“It’s not just an aviation issue. It has to be done in the same way in all other means of transport, because if you cross a border, it doesn’t really matter if you cross it by air, by train, by car, by bus, “he said.
The implementation of vaccine passports in Europe would be particularly difficult, given its policy of free movement.
European citizens often use trains, buses and other means of transport to travel between EU countries and their passports are not checked during these trips. As such, the need to check border vaccination certificates would cause significant logistical problems and could discourage some potential tourists from traveling abroad.