EU unveils its plan to save summer vacations

BRUSSELS — The European Union unveiled Wednesday its plan to help citizens across the 27 nations salvage their summer vacations after months of tough coronavirus confinement and to hopefully resurrect Europe’s badly battered tourism industry.

Around 150,000 people have died across Europe and Britain since the virus surfaced in northern Italy in February, but with the spread of the disease tapering off, people in many countries are cautiously venturing out of confinement to return to work and some schools are reopening.

A question on the minds of people, tour operators and the thousands of small businesses that depend on the tourism industry is whether the summer months this year will be reduced to a home-style “staycation.”

In a series of guidelines, the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, laid out its advice for lifting ID checks on hastily closed borders, helping to get airlines, ferries and buses running while ensuring the safety of passengers and crew, and preparing health measures for hotels to reassure clients.

But a big question remains: will the countries of the world’s biggest trading bloc follow the advice? Faced with a disease about which much is still unknown, national capitals have tended to go it alone, and they – not the EU Commission – have the final say over health and security matters.

The commission’s over-arching advice is that EU countries with similar rates of coronavirus infections and comparably strong health care systems should begin lifting border measures between each other. Tourists from outside Europe cannot enter until at least June 15.

The move comes amid deep concern that Europe’s ID-check free travel zone – the 26-country space known as the Schengen Area – is being strangled by controls, further harming virus-ravaged economies by limiting the movement of goods, services and people that are essential to business.

In a tweet Wednesday, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced that: “On May 15 there will only be random checks at the German-Austrian border and on June 15 the border should be opened again.”

He said his government is looking to do the same “with Switzerland, Liechtenstein and neighbouring countries in Eastern Europe, provided the infection numbers allow it.”

Even with restrictions easing, social distancing rules would apply, and the EU Commission is recommending that robust disease monitoring measures are put in place – including good testing capacity and contact tracing – so that people have the confidence to return to hotels and camping sites abroad.

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Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.

Lorne Cook, The Associated Press