Life & Leisure

Europe mulls tighter travel restrictions

Brussels, Jan 25 (efe-epa).- The European Union is mulling tighter travel restrictions for passengers arriving in the bloc and those making journeys from so-called hotspots while officials are striving to keep internal borders open.

The proposal from the European Commission comes as countries look to beef up travel restrictions amid fears that new Covid-19 variants could begin circulation more widely in the region.

Belgium, for example, has banned non-essential travel in and out of the country until March, a measure that diverges from EU policy.

Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission’s chief, tweeted: “The situation in Europe with the new variants have led us to take difficult but necessary decisions.

“We need to keep safe and discourage non-essential travel,” she added, defending her position on keeping the EU’s internal borders open.

The Commission has proposed a new color, dark red, to be added to Covid-19 prevalence maps produced by the European center for disease control in areas with a 14-day cumulative infection rate above 500 per 100,000 cases.

People traveling from those hotspots could be asked to quarantine or take a test on arriving at their destination. EFE-EPA

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