The European Union has recently made great efforts to find a uniform, clear language for dealing with China. There were strategy papers, there were high-level debates, but obviously no result. What European China policy looks like in practice can be seen in the struggle to find an answer to the uncontrolled corona outbreak after the abrupt end of the lockdown policy in China.
Italy pushed ahead with tests for travelers from China, France and Spain followed suit with tightened entry rules, and the EU then tried in various committees to subsequently bend a common line – shortly before the Chinese borders open again on January 8th.
The US, Australia, Japan, UK, India and other countries have also imposed restrictions on travelers from China in different ways. It may also be controversial whether the controls really help to stop the virus from spreading – at least they sent a clear political signal. However, the EU debated and debated. Before representatives of the 27 member countries met as part of the “Rapid Response Mechanism” (IPCR) on Wednesday afternoon, there were signs of a possible agreement.
But the meeting lasted until late in the evening – and only ended with “strong recommendations”, as the Swedish Council Presidency announced. The EU states could not agree on a test requirement. Instead, the EU countries are being asked to require travelers from China to Europe to have a negative corona test before departure, which should not be older than 48 hours.
There was agreement, among other things, to recommend wearing a medical or FFP2 mask on board the aircraft. However, the decision is not binding for the individual EU states, it is only a guideline. The measures are to be reviewed in the middle of the month.
Karl Lauterbach considers tests unnecessary. But the Italians are sticking with it
That’s how EU politics works, compromise for compromise’s sake. If all 27 do not agree on common rules for travelers to China, there will be controls at the inner-European borders like at the beginning of the pandemic, and nobody wants that anymore. But the compromise that is emerging is a European solution as if from a single source, neither in political nor in technical terms.
As a lesson from the pandemic, the EU has proclaimed a “health union”. It aims to ensure that Europe responds to cross-border health threats together. Competences that previously lay with the member states are transferred to the joint institutions. To this end, several regulations have been adopted and organizations established, such as a “European Center for Disease Prevention and Control” (ECDC). And this ECDC said last week that it was “not justified” to test all travelers to China.
The scientists come to the conclusion that due to the high level of vaccination protection and the generally high level of immunization within the EU, travelers to China do not pose a significant threat to Europe. The rate of infection in Europe is already high, but tolerable because of the comparatively harmless omicron variant, and there are currently no other virus variants circulating in China than in Europe. Accordingly, before rules are tightened, it would first be important to research potentially more dangerous virus mutations from China. And in the opinion of the committee, there is no need for comprehensive tests at European airports.
The German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach (SPD), also came to the assessment, who only called for stricter “variant monitoring” and saw no need for controls at airports. The MEP Peter Liese from the CDU, a doctor by profession and one of the leading European health politicians, made a similar statement. The risk of a dangerous mutant of the virus emerging in China is very low, he says. Liese believes it makes sense to monitor the waste water. “In my view, that should be enough for the time being.”
Austria no longer wants to do without Chinese tourists
The Italian government sees it differently. In December, it began testing travelers from China at the main Italian airports and quarantining infected passengers. The number of infected people varies greatly from machine to machine, and analysis of the samples so far has apparently only found forms of omicrons that are already known in Europe. Testing should continue at least until the end of January.
The actions of the Italian government seem understandable given the devastation caused by the virus in the country at the beginning of the pandemic. She wanted to give a political signal of strength, which was followed in France and Spain. But the differences with the rest of Europe became all the more apparent.
In Austria, for example, the importance of Chinese tourists for the domestic economy is openly argued. In the town of Hallstatt in Upper Austria, which is extremely popular with the Chinese, the Austrian government now wants to have the wastewater tested for virus variants.
It seems doubtful whether the compromise with tests only on Chinese soil would calm things down. The chairman of the board of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, pleaded in an interview with the Rheinische Post especially for a Europe-wide PCR test obligation for all travelers from the People’s Republic.
The Chinese government, in turn, is threatening sanctions if the EU introduces binding controls for travelers. When Brussels offered to cooperate in analyzing the virus variants and to deliver vaccines to China free of charge, she replied: European vaccines are not needed.