Domingo, 29 de Marzo de 2020 22:35

Although in late February, the EU claimed that they don’t consider the Coronavirus to be a strong enough reason to halt the Schengen Agreement, certain EU member states have now imposed border checks.

On Friday, March 13, Slovakia, Malta and the Czech Republic announced they will close off their borders to fellow EU member states in an effort to try and stop the spread of the Coronavirus.

Slovakia

Slovakia announced that it would be closing off its borders to all foreigners, except citizens of Poland. An Interior Ministry spokesperson stated that “no foreign citizens will be allowed to enter Slovakia”, adding “at the border crossings with Poland, only Polish citizens will be allowed to enter the country.”

At the time of the announcement, Slovakia had 21 reported Cases of the Coronavirus.

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic announced they will be banning entry to travellers coming from Germany and Austria as well as foreigners travelling from the countries most affected by the outbreak, which are:

• Italy
• Sweden
• France
• The Netherlands
• Belgium
• Spain
• Denmark
• Britain
• Norway
• Switzerland

The Czech travel ban also applies to non-European countries China, South Korea and Iran.

According to PM Andrej Babis, Czech citizens are also restricted from travelling to the highest affected countries

Malta

Malta will only be restricting border crossings to Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland, which report the highest number of Coronavirus cases, according to Malta PM Robert Abela.

Abela claimed, “The decision has been taken on the advice of the medical authorities because of the sharp increase in the spread of the virus.”

At the time of the restriction, Malta had 12 reported cases of the Coronavirus.

This decision was criticized by EU President Ursula von der Leyen, who said, “The single market has to function. It is not good when member states take unilateral action because it always causes a domino effect and that prevents urgently-needed medical equipment from reaching patients and hospitals. It amounts to the reintroduction of internal borders at a time when solidarity between member states is needed.”

As of March 13, nearly all European countries now have reported cases of the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The highest concentration of infections is in Italy, which has over 15,000 cases and rapidly growing. Following Italy are Spain (4,000+ cases), Germany (3,100+ cases), France (2,800+ cases), and Switzerland (1,100+ cases).

This decision comes less than three weeks after EU officials said that they don’t believe that reintroducing border checks will contribute to the slowdown of the virusspreading in Europe, and only one day after they condemned the US for suspending travel to the

Domingo, 29 de Marzo de 2020 22:35

La Croazia ha oggi eretto una barriera lunga circa tre metri a un valico di confine con la Bosnia, per facilitare i controlli e prevenire il passaggio illegale dei migranti. Ne dà notizia il portale bosniaco Klix al quale dal Ministero dell'Interno di Zagabria è stato confermato che tale barriera è stata posta "in conformità con le norme europee di controllo e protezione dei confini esterni dell'Ue". Si tratta del valico di confine Licko Petrovo Selo, tra Croazia e Bosnia, sulla strada diretta verso la non lontana città bosniaca di Bihac. Quest'area è da circa due anni lungo la parte della rotta balcanica che più frequentemente viene percorsa dai migranti che tramite la Croazia, che non fa parte ancora della zona Schengen, tentano di raggiungere la Slovenia, l'Austria o l'Italia. Da Zagabria è stato spiegato che i valichi di confine di regola dovrebbero essere protetti da recenti o altri tipi di barriere. "Nel caso si mostrasse necessario e in base all'analisi dei rischi collegati alla crisi migratoria, in futuro verranno poste barriere anche ad altri valichi", ha aggiunto il Ministero dell'Interni croato. Nell'ultimo periodo simili barriere sono state poste ad almeno altri sei valichi di confine, con la Serbia e la Bosnia. Sin dalla drammatica crisi migratoria del 2015, la Croazia ha sempre rifiutato di erigere sui propri confini lunghe barriere di filo spinato, come hanno invece fatto la Slovenia e l'Ungheria. Negli ultimi anni la polizia croata è però fortemente criticata per adoperare la tecnica di "push-back", ovvero di respingimenti illeciti, a volte con abusi e violenze ai danni dei migrant