Europe’s Travel Halt at the Hand of COVID-19
Policy Analysis by Dana El Khoury, Contributor
November 1st, 2020
With the emergence of the COVID-19 virus expectations regarding 2020 have had to be altered to accommodate to this drastic situation. Whether on an individual or on a national scale, restrictions were set, and plans were changed - leaving the economy and its sectors to take major hits front frontface. For instance, the accumulated cancelled individual travel plans, and the implementation of travel bans have left the aviation sector in shock.
To put things in perspective, the measures taken by the European Union (EU) to keep this virus outside its borders were mostly in vain. The EU currently fosters over 3.2 million infected individuals and has recorded over 150,700 deaths as of October 8 (IMF, 2020). The second quarter of 2020 showed a contraction of real GDP by 15% in the euro area and 14.4% in the European Union (Trading Economics, 2020). Naturally, more severe measures were taken from lockdowns to travel bans. On the 17th of March, the European Commission prohibited the travel of any individual who is a third-country national; meaning, an individual who does not belong to the EU, the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or family member of one of the previously mentioned coalitions.
It also restricted travel to any individual who is not a long-term visa holder or does not hold a resident permit, or one who is not a medical staffer, a military member, a seasonable agricultural laborer, or an individual responsible for good’s transportation. Similarly, all EU Member States, aside for Ireland, as well as all the Schengen states implemented a travel restriction policy. Some states even extended the restriction to EU and EEA members alike.
Among the travel restrictions imposed by Europe is the suspension of distribution of visas (European Commission, 2020). And thus, third-country nationals have been prohibited to cross the borders of the Schengen Area, as they have received refusal forms and cancellation of their passport stamps. As for those third-country nationals already in Europe, they have received either long-term visas or temporary residence permits allowing them to extend their stay during the travel bans (European Commission, 2020).
On July the 1st, the European Council had allowed the gradual lift of the travel restrictions set to limit COVID spread, allowing the crossing of travelers from the following countries into the European Union and Schengen area: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Jordan, Morocco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay (Deutsche Welle, 2020). The Council also permitted the movement of British nationals, as they will remain to be considered European Union citizens till the end of 2020, along with the movement of nationals of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican. The alleviation of restrictions that the Council had allowed was not a legally binding decision on European Union Member States, rather an optional recommendation the members can instate if they deem the COVID situation within their borders safe (European Council, 2020).
On the 13th of October, the Council proposed a new approach to travel measures, which includes the establishment of common criteria and framework on travel initiatives to combat COVID. This includes a color-coded map that is divided based on the region, whereby the data will involve the number of cases per 100,000 capita in the previous 14 days, the number of test per 100,000 capita performed in the past week, and the percentage of positive test results of the past week. This data would be procured by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and would help the European Union Member States take calculated travel restrictions decision by the epidemiological condition of each region (European Council, 2020).
On that note, European passenger counts are expected to fall by an estimate of 60% in 2020, the equivalent of 705 million passenger travels. The demand for travel in Europe is forecasted to have a gradual recovery but would not reach 2019 levels before 2024 (International Air Transport Association, 2020). These travel restrictions, specifically the visa applications suspension, have caused severe economic and political implications on Europe and the world as a whole.
In Europe, unemployment has been on the rise, as over 7 million jobs were involved in the aviation and touristic sector. The travel restrictions caused a shoot in revenue of hotels and restaurants of 50%, one of 70% for touristic operators and agencies, and a 90% drop for the cruise and aviation industries (European Parliament, 2020). The European Investment Bank predicts that EU private sector investments would collapse to a rate between 31%-52% (European Commission, 2020). As for European politics, the countries’ mechanisms were to find ways to unite in battling this virus, as some countries united to fight debt through a proposed initiative, corona bonds, which did not gain the approval of other countries in a European Council meeting (Smith-Meyer, 2020). Likewise, failure to progress in Brexit negotiations have affected the UK and EU, and with the inability to focus on Brexit, due to the health crisis, the UK’s deadline in December has become unrealistic (Sandford, 2020).
On a global level, global tourism, which was put to a halt due to travel restrictions, could face losses up to $2.2 trillion, the equivalent of 2.8% of GDP (UNCTAD, 2020). 120 million touristic jobs worldwide stand at risk (Felix Richter, 2020). Politically, countries were blindsided by the travel restrictions and visa rejections. Many political dilemmas have been highlighted during this pandemic such as the question as to whether healthcare should be a public good, the role of federal governments with respect to local ones, the spread of fake news and the rise of media biasedness, the use of this global health crisis for political gains… (Dauba-Pantanacce, 2020).
Travel restrictions and the suspension of visa applications are initiatives taken to stop the spread of the virus in most regions of the world, specifically in Europe. This pandemic has shown that travel restrictions tend to slow the spread of the virus, however, it does not eliminate it completely. Yet, the reasons policymakers have still diverted to this solution is that slowing it and delaying the crisis gives them more time to prepare for it and further advance in their research towards fighting the virus. Similarly, there are not many politically feasible alternative strategies to this urgent and inevitable threat.
The pressure imposed in governments to proactively take robust initiatives leaves them with minimal options on the table and closing off their borders will definitely postpone the pending health crisis (Pillinger, 2020). However, travel restrictions have proven to have negative repercussions on a country’s economy and political settings, as was proven in the European case discussed in this article. This raises the question: will the economic and political setbacks caused by these restrictions be worth their implementation?
References
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