“We have made progress in recent months”, but “I regret that so far we have not reached a common attitude of the Member States on travel rules”, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday 22 June, on the sidelines of a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was in Berlin to present the evaluation of the German recovery plan.
Merkel referred to the situation in Portugal, which she said could have been avoided.
After being hit first by the third wave of the pandemic in early 2021, Portugal is facing a resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Travel between the Lisbon region and the rest of the country was banned last weekend to prevent the spread of the Delta strain of the Sars-Cov-2 virus.
It is “only a matter of time” before the Delta strain becomes the dominant virus variant on the European continent, said Mrs von der Leyen. “The good news”, she says, is that the new generation of vaccines provide adequate protection against all forms of the disease. She called for continued vaccination against Covid-19, while “57%” and “36%” of European adults have received one or both doses of vaccine, respectively.
EU leaders will take stock of the pandemic at the EU summit on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 June. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)