Lasting disproportionate impact on daily life in the border region
With the circulation of the Corona virus, governments are deploying efforts to curb the mobility of individuals. Staying at home and limiting non-emergency travel and visits is a frequently deployed and successful recipe against the flare-up of Corona infections. To this end, border traffic is also being restricted. This involves issuing travel advice and quarantine rules. Recently, Dutch policy in this has changed, however insufficiently as this blog describes.
Europe: Council recommendation
On 17 October, the European Council Recommendation on coordinating restrictions on free movement at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was adopted. In this Recommendation, European government leaders agreed, among other things, on cross-border mobility and when EU residents may be quarantined by Member States due to this mobility. This as a consequence on the patchwork of national policies of member states regarding cross-border movement, quarantine and testing obligations, effectively leading to severe restrictions on European free movement.
At a certain level of infection, the quarantine measure for inbound travellers is justified. However, for border workers, border students, transport workers and travellers for urgent medical, family or business reasons, among others, should not be required to be quarantined for those essential reasons. [1]
After all, the unhindered possibility of these cross-border trips in Europe goes to the heart of European freedoms. Despite the fact that the Council recommendation itself has no legal value, it sets the political tone.
Dutch border policy
The Netherlands also issues travel advisories for (regions of) European member states, namely green, yellow, orange and red. This travel advice is determined on the basis of quantitative and qualitative data. Germany and Belgium are coloured orange in their entirety by the Netherlands, which strongly advises against all non-emergency travel. Upon return from these orange areas, a 10-day quarantine is strongly recommended. This quarantine can be interrupted for a number of necessary travel purposes, including for cross-border work, exceptional family visits and cross-border study. However, interrupting the quarantine does not affect the continuation of the quarantine period for daily life.
In the border region, these rules create problems, including that border workers or students are effectively unable to get out of quarantine. Indeed, frontier workers can cross the border even during the quarantine period, but it keeps causing a new quarantine period each time.
On 11 November, Minister De Jonge acknowledged this undesirable situation and reported that an exception to home quarantine will apply to frontier workers and frontier students.
The issue here is the IND’s definition (as well as the situation the other way round):
| You live in another EU member state (e.g. Belgium or Germany) with a valid residence permit for that country. You work/study in the Netherlands. You return to your place of residence in that other EU member state at least once a week. |
Problem at border for economy and personal life
This ends the ‘quarantine loop’ for frontier workers and students, now that they do not have to be quarantined for the sake of the frontier work or study itself. However, other necessary border traffic is emphatically not exempted from the recommendation for home quarantine. Thus, the European Council recommendation is only partially adopted. Indeed, the exception to quarantine covers only those people defined as frontier workers or frontier students.
Anyone who does not regularly commute across the border for work/study (read less than once a week) is therefore not exempted from home quarantine and must then look at the rules for interruption of home quarantine for necessary travel purposes, as we already knew them. So with that, for example, the plumber from a Dutch border municipality who has an assignment in a Belgian or German border municipality is not exempt from quarantine on return (too incidental). It also does not include someone who goes across the border for an important lecture or, for example, has to cross the border to sign an important document. They are not even necessary travel destinations to interrupt any quarantine. After all, as a border worker, one does not qualify. Another necessary purpose of travel is travel for the purpose of contributing to the interests of the Dutch economy and society. This has now been further defined in De Jonge’s parliamentary letter, aligning it with the definition for non-EU residents wishing to travel to the Netherlands despite the EU entry ban. This includes significant amounts and strict conditions, which do not fit with a euregional economy in which work is sometimes done across the border (i.e. the plumber who has a job in a Belgian or German border municipality).
For example, crossing the border for compelling family or care reasons is also not exempted from quarantine (but is a reason for interrupting quarantine happily), although the Council recommendation also lists this. Here, co-parenting, care, family relationships, and other necessary social and societal motivations are treated disproportionately differently from domestic cases. It is clearly mindful of the reason for restricting mobility, but no account has been taken here of the broader spectrum of the regional economy and social cohesion in the Euroregion, with all the occasional, minor border traffic that goes with it.
Referentions
[1] Article 19 ( a)-(i) of the Council Recommendation.