Previously, ITEM has written about mobility-restricting quarantine measures for the sake of preventing COVID-19 infections. Policies are so designed to minimise cross-country mobility in particular, with the winter sports season in mind. However, ends and means are not always the same, which can come at the expense of day-to-day life in border regions. However, there are examples of how it can be done, as this blog describes.
Europe: an update
On 17 October, the European Council recommendation on coordination of restrictions on free movement at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was adopted. This Council recommendation aimed to provide some structure and alignment among the patchwork of measures on cross-border movement in Europe. With the emergence of new and more contagious virus variants, the European Commission as well as the Council feel compelled to update this Council Recommendation to the current threat level: all non-essential travel should be discouraged. Meanwhile, European member states have already rigged up yet another range of measures to prevent and minimise cross-border travel: quarantine, negative (PCR and/or rapid) testing requirements before and/or after arrival, health certificates, Passenger Locator Forms[i] (PLF) or complete entry bans.
In a nutshell, the European Commission recommended updating the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s common colour codes for high-risk areas of the EU with ‘dark red’ and stronger disincentives to travel from and to higher-risk areas. In the Council, European heads of government also expressed their desire to avoid travel bans but limit non-essential travel in the EU. To this end, the European Council Recommendation was updated on 1 February 2021 , in line with the recommendations of the European Commission.
Key updates:
| 1. | The colour code ‘dark red’ should be added to the risk assessment of European regions; |
| 2. | Member states should recognise the differences between colour codes and differentiate measures accordingly; |
| 3. | Member States should strongly discourage all non-essential travel to and from ‘dark red’ areas and discourage travel to and from red areas. Nevertheless, transport should continue without hindrance, as well as movement of workers for professional reasons; |
| 4. | Discouragement should be through quarantine on arrival and/or undergoing a (PCR or rapid) COVID-19 test before and/or after arrival; |
| 5. | Member states should allow their own residents to be tested in their home country after arrival, rather than requiring pre-arrival testing; |
| 6. | Residents living in the border region who commute across the border daily or frequently for reasons of work, study, family, health or care should not be subject to testing obligations or quarantine. If testing obligations are necessary, the frequency should be proportional. If the epidemiological situation is similar on both sides of the border, no testing obligations should apply. |
There is a clear trend: all non-essential travel should be avoided, but the border region should be relieved. Given that some 40 per cent of the European territory consists of European border regions<[ii], this is also an important condition.
While the European Council recommendation may not formally be legally binding, the European Commission is nonetheless close on the heels of the member states to conform national policies to it. On 17 February 2021, for instance, the Commission sent a friendly reminder to all member states. [iii]
Policies in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion
The next question is how the daily lives of residents of border regions can be relieved and the number of travel movements reduced, in order to limit infection rates. Here, it is essential to recognise that border regions are cross-border. It is not so much a region on a border, but a region óver the border: residents are used to frequently spending their daily lives on the ‘other side’ of the border. However, there is no travel advice for the cross-border region, but there is for a region on the border. With Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany designating each other’s regions as high-risk areas, the cross-border region is compromised.
Within the INTERREG EMR PANDEMRIC project, overviews of measures in the three countries that make up the territory of the Meuse-Rhine Euregio (the Netherlands, Belgium and North Rhine-Westphalia) are drawn up very frequently. For such an overview, including the exact rules around border traffic, please refer to the PANDEMRIC measures overview. All three have rules around quarantine, (PCR and/or rapid) testing before/after arrival and some declarations. Ostensibly, most far-reaching is possibly the Belgian ban on all non-essential travel to risk areas<[iv], which was introduced almost simultaneously with the update of the European Council recommendation. Incidentally, this is not in line with the Council Recommendation, as it calls for no generic bans or border closures[v].Nevertheless, some exceptions relevant to the border region are foreseen, depending on other ‘indicators’.
| Indicator | NL | BE | NRW |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indicator distance | The PCR test requirement before arrival in the Netherlands does not apply to the cross-border bus if it remains within 30 kilometres of the national border | – | – |
| Indicator time | – | For stays shorter than 48 hours in a high-risk area, the testing and quarantine requirements do not apply, as well as usually no PLF | For stays of less than 24 hours in a risk area , the Einreiseanmeldung-, test- and/or [vi] quarantine obligation do not apply |
| Transport indicator | The PCR and rapid test requirement does not apply to arrival by private transport. The rapid test requirement also does not apply to international OV | For stays shorter than 48 hours, there is no requirement to fill out PLF if arriving by own transport. For travellers via a carrier, however, a PLF must be completed | – |
| Indicator area | Quarantine does not apply to visiting loved one/spouse, child or parent in Belgium or Germany | All non-essential travel is prohibited. Daily activities across the border by residents of border municipalities and border regions are essential [vii] | For stays shorter than 24 hours in neighbouring countries, the Einreiseanmeldung-, test and/or quarantine obligation do not apply. |
| Indicator function | No home quarantine and no PCR- and rapid test requirement for border workers, border students | No quarantine or testing requirement for frontier workers or frontier students, co-parenting. These are also an essential travel reason. | Exception to the quarantine and testing requirement border workers, students or for stays up to 72 hours for compelling family visits |
Many roads lead to Rome
Many national policies aim to decongest day-to-day life in one’s own region, but limit distant movements. After all, this prevents infections from moving from region to region. In the light of European integration and European freedoms, it should not matter whether this region is within national borders or cross-border.
The table above shows that exceptions are made through various avenues (indicators) to relieve cross-border traffic somewhat, also from an economic point of view. The simplest are time-based exceptions in Belgium<48 hours) and Germany<24 hours). With such a time-based exception, it is plausible to distinguish trips within the home region from distant trips outside the home region. A distinction based on area is also possible, but is often combined with the function of the trip, or the duration. In particular, distinguishing by function often results in lists that are too exhaustive, as witnessed also by the Belgian border closure during the first wave.
It is therefore good that the Belgian government learned from this very mistake and recognised the drastic consequences for the border region. This explicitly constituted a reason for not a complete border closure, but rather a ban on non-essential travel. From the perspective of European freedoms, such a ban remains very far-reaching. It is also for this reason that the European Commission specifically asked Belgium to provide additional explanations. From a Euroregional perspective, the indicator introduced for an exception to this ban is more positive. Activities within day-to-day life in the neighbouring country for the inhabitants of border municipalities (the municipality directly on the border) and the immediately adjacent municipalities (the municipality immediately behind it in the same country) are considered essential, and cross-border movements within the border region (not further defined) are also allowed if they are necessary (and there is evidence of this).
| This provision constitutes a direct recognition of the cross-border region, as it identifies the border region as an indicator. From a Euroregional perspective, the provision an sich could therefore be seen as best practice. Of course, border controls should be avoided, but together with the exceptions to the quarantine and testing obligations, society in the cross-border region can mostly continue day-to-day activities undisturbed, of course within the ‘stay at home’ decree. |
But improvements are necessary
Nevertheless, constraints remain for society in the cross-border region. In the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, these come from Dutch policy. Dutch exceptions to home quarantine and testing obligations are very limited in scope, ITEM also described earlier. For now, there is no legal quarantine obligation, but the government is preparing one. [viii] The exceptions remain, as is the case for the urgent recommendation. This is problematic, especially if other member states in the same Euregion do allow more border traffic, recognising the cross-border region. For example, while Belgium actually allows the necessary shopping in a supermarket just across the border, the Belgian resident in the Netherlands would have to be immediately quarantined. If transport is by cross-border public transport, other than buses, a negative test requirement also applies.
| Consequently, time-, (cross-border) region- or function-specific exceptions can be well formulated from the idea of European integration. If the neighbouring country does not recognise these measures equally through a road, the border region remains burdened rather than relieved. That besides, the already existing differences in policies<[ix], ever more creates more confusion and ambiguity for the citizens in the border region.Europe is as strong as its border regions; with regions where borders blur and societies intertwine, the Council recommendation touches the essence, it is now necessary to recognise and, even better, align policies. |
Referentions
[i Forms by which a traveller gives advance notice of their journey to the country of arrival. This is compulsory and frequently instituted, such as in Belgium (PLF) and Germany (Einreiseanmeldung). A harmonised form is being developed at European level.
[ii] European Commission, Communication: Boosting growth and cohesion in EU border regions, COM(2017) 534 final.[iii] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/johansson/announcements/letter-commissioners-johansson-and-reynders-addressed-eu-ministers-home-affairs-and-justice-travel_en
[iv] This applies as of 17 January 2021, provisionally until 1 March 2021.
[v The European Commission asked Belgium, among others, on 22 February 2021 to explain the ban on non-essential travel within 10 days, encouraging it to comply with the Council recommendation
[vi] ‘Or’ because NRW in the Einreiseverordnung actually offers the choice offer between either going into quarantine or handing over a negative (rapid) test result handed over before or within 24 hours of arrival.
[vii] Subject to conditions.
[viii] Status letter COVID-19, 23 February 2021, https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2021/02/23/kamerbrief-inzake-stand-van-zaken-covid-19
[ix] Compare , for example, the curfew in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion: at 9 pm in South Limburg, at 24 in Flanders, 10 pm in Wallonia and none in NRW.