European Commission asked to set guidelines on UK travel curbs

BRUSSELS • European Union governments yesterday called on the European Commission to urgently draw up guidelines to coordinate the bloc's approach to travel restrictions on Britain.

A number of countries closed their borders to Britain yesterday over fears of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, causing travel chaos. Within the 27-member European Union, those measures include a 24-hour travel ban in Belgium, another one extending to Jan 1 in the Netherlands, and a ban on goods vehicles in France.

Representatives from the EU member states convened for a videoconference yesterday and supported the idea of a coordinated EU approach, an EU diplomat said. They subsequently asked the European Commission to come up with common guidelines.

The EU members also stressed the importance of keeping borders open within the Schengen Area, the group of 26 countries which have abolished controls on borders with one another.

"Another important issue for member states is the question of repatriating citizens and legal residents wishing to return from the UK," the diplomat said.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on its members in Europe to step up measures against the coronavirus in the face of the new variant circulating in Britain, its European branch said.

"Across Europe, where transmission is intense and widespread, countries need to redouble their control and prevention approaches," a spokesman for WHO Europe told Agence France-Presse on Sunday.

The United Nations agency urged its members worldwide to "increase the sequencing of Sars-CoV-2 viruses where possible and sharing of sequence data internationally, in particular, to report if the same mutations of concern are found", the spokesman said.

The WHO noted "preliminary signs that the variant may be able to spread more easily between people" and "preliminary information that the variant may affect (the) performance of some diagnostic (tests)". It said it had "no evidence to indicate any change in disease severity, but this is also under investigation".

The British variant has about 20 mutations, including several that affect how the virus locks onto human cells and infects them. These mutations may allow the variant to replicate and transmit more efficiently.

British officials have said that the variant was as much as 70 per cent more transmissible.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, NYTIMES