European Commission advised EU member states on Wednesday to extend restrictions on non-essential travel into the Schengen Area until May 15 in order to further curb the COVID-19 pandemic.
This measure proposal came shortly after European finance ministers failed to reach a consensus on the bloc’s economic response to the ongoing crisis.
The bloc decided in mid-March to shut its external borders for any non-essential travel for a month, largely in a bid to prevent the 27 member states from closing frontiers inside Europe’s control-free travel zone to slow down the disease’s spread.
Emergency border closures within Europe have obstructed the transport of goods, further aggravating economic problems stemming from coronavirus lockdowns across the continent.
The move, proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday, would cover 30 European countries that sit in – or are aligned with – the continent’s open-border Schengen zone.
In practice, nevertheless, countries have often followed their own judgment on internal borders, leading to sometimes long lines forming at their frontiers and heated exchanges between capitals on how to remedy that – one of many examples of how the pandemic is stretching European unity and solidarity.
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