European Union countries rushing to revive
their economies and reopen their borders after months of coronavirus
restrictions are prepared to block Americans from entering because the United
States has failed to control the scourge, according to draft lists of
acceptable travelers seen by The New York Times.
That prospect, which would lump American
visitors in with Russians and Brazilians as unwelcome, is a stinging blow to
American prestige in the world and a repudiation of President Trump’s handling
of the virus in the United States, which has more than 2.3 million cases and
upward of 120,000 deaths, more than any other country.
European nations are currently haggling over
two potential lists of acceptable visitors based on how countries are faring
with the coronavirus pandemic. Both include China, as well as developing
nations like Uganda, Cuba and Vietnam.
Travelers from the United States and the rest
of the world have been excluded from visiting the European Union — with few
exceptions mostly for repatriations or “essential travel” —- since mid-March.
But a final decision on reopening the borders is expected early next week,
before the bloc reopens on July 1.
A prohibition of Americans by Brussels partly
reflects the shifting pattern of the pandemic. In March, when Europe was the
epicenter, Mr. Trump infuriated European leaders when he banned citizens from most
European Union countries from traveling to America. Mr. Trump justified the
move as necessary to protect the United States, which at the time had roughly
1,100 coronavirus cases and 38 deaths.
In late May and early June, Mr. Trump said
Europe was “making progress” and hinted that some restrictions would be lifted
soon, but nothing has happened since then. Today, Europe has largely curbed the
outbreak, even as the United States, the worst-afflicted, has seen more
infection surges just in the past week.
Prohibiting American travelers from entering
the European Union would have significant economic, cultural and geopolitical
ramifications. Millions of American tourists visit Europe every summer.
Business travel is common, given the huge economic ties between the United
States and the E.U.
The draft lists were shared with the Times by
an official involved in the talks and confirmed by another official involved in
the talks. Two additional European Union officials confirmed the content of the
lists as well the details of the negotiations to shape and finalize them. All
of the officials gave the information on condition of anonymity because the
issue is politically delicate.
The forging of a common list of outsiders who
can enter the bloc is part of an effort by the European Union to fully reopen
internal borders among its 27 member states. Free travel and trade among
members is a core principle of the bloc — one that has been badly disrupted
during the pandemic.
Since the outbreak, the bloc has succumbed to
piecemeal national policies that have resulted in an incoherent patchwork of
open and closed borders.
Some internal borders have practically
remained closed while others have opened. Some member states that desperately
need tourists have rushed ahead to accept non-E.U. visitors and pledged to test
them on arrival. Others have tried to create closed travel zones between
certain countries, called “bubbles” or “corridors.”
Putting these safe lists together highlights
the fraught, messy task of removing pandemic-related measures and unifying the
bloc’s approach. But the imperatives of restoring the internal harmony of the
E.U. and slowly opening up to the world is paramount, even if it threatens
rifts with close allies including the United States, which appears bound to be
excluded, at least initially.
President Trump, as well as his Russian and
Brazilian counterparts, Vladimir V. Putin and Jair Bolsonaro, have followed
what critics call a comparable path in their pandemic response that leaves all
three countries in a similarly bad spot: they were dismissive at the outset of
the crisis, slow to respond to scientific advice and saw a boom of domestic
cases as other parts of the world, notably in Europe and Asia, were slowly
managing to get their outbreaks under control.
Countries on the E.U. draft lists have been
selected as safe based on a combination of epidemiological criteria. The
benchmark is the E.U. average number of new infections — over the past 14 days
— per 100,000 people, which is currently 16 for the bloc. The comparable number
for the United States is 107, while Brazil’s is 190 and Russia’s is 80,
according to a Times database.
Once diplomats agree on a final list, it will
be presented as a recommendation early next week before July 1. The E.U. can’t
force members to adopt it, but European officials warn that failure of any of
the 27 members to stick to it could lead to the reintroduction of borders
within the bloc.
The reason this exercise is additionally
complex for Europe is that, if internal borders are open but member states
don’t honor the same rules, visitors from nonapproved nations could land in one
European country, and then jump onward to other E.U. nations undetected.
European officials said the list would be
revised every two weeks to reflect new realities around the world as nations
see the virus ebb and flow.
The process of agreeing on it has been
challenging, with diplomats from all European member states hunkering down for
multiple hourslong meetings for the past few weeks.
As of Tuesday, the officials and diplomats
were poring over two versions of the safe list under debate, and were scheduled
to meet again on Wednesday to continue sparring over the details.
One list contains 47 countries and includes
only those nations with an infection rate lower than the E.U. average. The
other longer list has 54 countries and also includes those nations with
slightly worse case rates than the E.U. average, going up to 20 new cases per
100,000 people.
The existing restrictions on nonessential
travel to all 27 member states plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and
Liechtenstein were introduced on March 16 and extended twice until July 1, in a
bid to contain the virus as the continent entered a three-month long
confinement.
“Discussions are happening very intensively,”
to reach consensus in time for July 1, said Adalbert Jahnz, a spokesman for the
European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch. He called the process
“frankly, a full-time job.”
The E.U. agency for infectious diseases, the
European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, warned negotiators that the
case numbers were so dependent on the level of truthfulness and testing in each
country, that it was hard to vouch for them, officials taking part in the talks
said.
China, for example, has been accused of
withholding information and manipulating the numbers of infections released to
the public. In parts of the developing world, case numbers are very low, but
it’s hard to determine whether they paint an accurate picture given limited
testing.
And in the United States, comments made by
President Trump at a rally in Tulsa over the weekend highlighted how easy it is
to manipulate a country’s case numbers, as he suggested that domestic testing
was too broad.
“When you do testing to that extent, you’re
gonna find more people you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people
slow the testing down, please,” Mr. Trump told supporters.
European embassies around the world could be
enlisted to help verify or opine on the data provided that would inform the
final list, negotiators said, another indication that the list could end up
being quite short if European diplomats at embassies said reported numbers were
unreliable.
Many European Union countries are desperate
to reopen their borders to visitors from outside the region to salvage tourism
and boost airlines’ revenue while keeping their own borders open to each other.
Some have already started accepting visitors from outside the bloc.
At the other extreme, a few European nations
including Denmark are not prepared to allow any external visitors from non-E.U.
countries, and are likely to continue with this policy after July 1.
Germany, France and many other E.U. nations
want non-European travelers to be allowed, but are also worried about
individual countries tweaking the safe list or admitting travelers from
excluded countries, officials said.
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