The year is 2020. I am completing the final year of my Bachelor’s Degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the Australian National University (ANU). This semester I have been part of the Australian National Internships Program (ANIP), paired with the ANU Centre for European Studies and had to produce a report on its behalf – so far so normal. What is less normal is that I have been doing so from Germany where I have been stuck since April with no hope of returning to Australia before graduating. Instead, I put the time after European lockdown had ended to good use, travelling and rediscovering my own continent, all while studying and diligently compiling the aforementioned research report. In the end, I can proudly say that my ANIP was completed not just from Australia or Germany, but from Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Finland, and Italy. I gave my ANIP report presentation from a hotel room in Vilnius and built my research sipping away on coffee in Munich, Bratislava, Prague, Tallinn, Helsinki and other places. After all, the year is 2020. Finally, I got that bold, new campus experience ANU students such as myself have long been promised.
Borders during the first wave
What has been rather striking though, was the bewildering variety of entry and quarantine regimes that I encountered as well as the dazzling pace at which these, at times, could change. The European Union’s (EU) Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, had advised all EU and Schengen members to fully reinstate freedom of movement by 15 June. Everyone complied but everyone did so in their own way. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania required self-isolation for everyone arriving from a country with a cumulative Covid-19 incidence of 15 per 100,000 over the two weeks preceding arrival. Finland set their threshold at 8 infections per 100,000. Germany’s had been 50 infections per 100,000 over the week preceding arrival. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Italy gradually abolished all border quarantine requirements after 15 June but reserved the right to deem individual EU countries high-risk countries, should they see fit. Slovenia went further to restrict the number of border crossings travellers from other EU countries could use.
Meanwhile, as Coronavirus cases rose again some states amended their quarantine requirements. Lithuania, for example, changed its regime four times between mid-September and mid-October. Finland raised its threshold once in early September. Estonia did so twice, albeit only for travellers from neighbouring Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland at first. Eventually, Finland returned to closing its borders to all non-Finns. Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Italy gradually deemed more and more countries as high-risk, although only the most severely affected Member States at the time like Spain, Croatia, or Luxembourg. At the same time, Lithuania abolished border checks at its land border with Poland and Latvia, even though Poland exceeded Lithuania’s threshold value for the better part of two months.
The rationale behind closing those internal Schengen borders seems obvious: This is what everyone else has been doing to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-19, the virus that had already wreaked havoc over Wuhan in China and was beginning to do so in Europe and other parts of the world. Indeed, Donald Trump has been touting his timely closure of the United States’ borders to Chinese and European travellers as a great, perhaps the greatest ever service to the American people. Australia and New Zealand have imposed total travel bans that have been making it hard even for its own citizens to return. All EU and Schengen members, except Sweden, then closing their borders, too, did not come as a surprise. Perhaps, the grand irony of German police patrolling the bridge that connects a tiny Luxembourgish town named Schengen with Germany, was even warranted given how little was known about how Covid-19 spreads and affects people at the time.
The EU subsequently mandated reopening on and around 15 June followed a similarly straightforward rationale. Reopening was supposed to reinstate one of the core EU and European principle whose development had begun exactly 35 years and one day earlier. On 14 June 1985 the now famous Schengen Agreement was signed – Complete freedom of movement for everyone without border checks. While goods and some essential personnel were allowed to cross borders throughout the restrictive period, most ordinary people could not. The ramifications have been severe – international couples have been torn apart, as have friends and families living in border regions, not to mention the severely beat tourism industry.
Borders during travel season
What is less obvious, is why the different Member States all introduced different rules for when travellers would have to quarantine, even with borders reopened. Everyone was within their rights to do so. But surely the virus does not behave much differently when in Portugal or Spain than when in Finland or Estonia.
The Czech Republic
The Czech Republic was widely praised for managing the first wave rather well and, subsequently, removed Coronavirus-related restrictions almost entirely. They were one of the first to make face masks mandatory, even in public outdoor spaces. As such, the number of new infections peaked at 381 on 4 April but subsided to as little as 38 one month later, on 4 May. Soon enough restrictions were due to be rolled back. Two months later, it was almost as if Covid-19 had never existed. Just around the time of my first visit to Prague, face masks no longer had to be worn anywhere except in the Metro and at the doctors. The city of Prague even sanctioned a kind of feast held on Charles Bridge – arguably Prague`s and the Czech Republic’s most iconic sight – celebrating the end of face masks, and Coronavirus.
Czechia’s border restrictions should be seen in this light as well. Reopening the borders with Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary by mid-June was on the cards for Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček as early as mid-May. Following a phone conference with his Austrian and Slovak counterparts, he stated that free travel should be possible for not just the economy’s but also for the sake of the tourism industry. On 1 June, the Czech government introduced a traffic light system indicating quarantine requirements for all EU and Schengen members. Five days later – and ten days before the official EU-wide reopening – Slovakia, Austria, Hungary as well as Germany already were ‘green’ countries, meaning they could enter the Czech Republic without any restrictions whatsoever. By 15 June, most other EU countries followed. Throughout the following three months, only Spain and Romania where, at times, not green listed. Such decisions on ‘red’ or ‘green’ listing were made by the Czech Ministry of Health following “an evaluation of the epidemiological situation.”[i]
Lithuania
In Lithuania, the starting situation was similar. The country emerged almost unscathed (in public health terms) from the first wave. The highest number of new cases in one day was 90, recorded on 18 April. Case numbers then quickly dropped to as little as two new cases on 2 May, only two weeks later. Numbers remained similarly low until mid-September.
Unlike the Czech Republic, Lithuanian quarantine requirements were some of the strictest in all of Europe. Borders reopened 15 June, as agreed at the EU level. But only travellers arriving from countries with fewer than 15 new cases per 100,000 in the previous two weeks could enter quarantine free. The obvious conclusion would be that this strict rule was justified by Lithuania’s low case numbers. Curiously, borders between the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania opened a few weeks before 15 June. But all three were recording some of the lowest infection rates across Europe at the time.
But as time progressed, case numbers started rising again all over Europe. I was planning my trip to Lithuania for early September. But at the time Germany had already exceeded the 15 per 100,000 infection rate. So I couldn’t go, or so I thought…
On 14 September quarantine free travel was suddenly possible again. The Lithuanian government had raised the threshold to 25 new infections per 100,000. Before the change in methodology, quarantine-free travel to Lithuania was only possible, if you were arriving from Latvia, Finland or Cyprus. After the change, Germans, Poles, Swedes, Norwegians and a few more could enter – so I did, too. But numbers kept rising all over Europe and in Lithuania. By the time I left the country in late-September, Germany’s infection rate had also crossed the 25 per 100,000 threshold. Consequently, the methodology for determining quarantine requirements changed again on 12 October. From then on, it was only travellers arriving from countries with a lower incidence than Lithuania’s who could enter. This rule has been in force to date. The pattern behind this seems quite clear. Whenever infection rates would rise, both abroad and in Lithuania, to the extent that the border would be effectively closed to all but a few people, the threshold would increase.
Lessons learnt?
To combat this chaos, the EU has introduced a traffic light system that indicates Covid-19 infection risk for each region on 13 October. Now, all EU members are free to introduce whichever quarantine rule they please but based on the same data.
Both the Czech Republic and Lithuania have witnessed or continue to witness catastrophic second waves, with incidences of upwards of 1,000 new infections per 100,000 over 14 days. One might even be inclined to think that border restrictions, regardless of their strictness, have not been very helpful in preventing those waves from sweeping those countries.
But since then, border restrictions have reversed. The Czech Republic, on the one hand, is now unreachable for non-citizens without some kind of valid reason for entry and a quarantine and/or testing procedure. Quite a backflip on its earlier policies which have made the country open to almost everyone, irrespective of the epidemiological situation. Meanwhile, Lithuania started out with one of the strictest quarantine regimes. Now, quarantine free travel is possible from all EU Member States. But that’s only following the policy in place since 12 October. Lithuania now has the highest case incidence in the world, according to the New York Times.[ii] Literally every country, including every EU Member State, has a lower incidence rate. Go figure! We need not lose hope yet.
What a bold new campus experience. After all, the year is 2020.
[i] [i] https://koronavirus.mzcr.cz/en/as-of-14-september-the-ministry-of-health-will-again-be-including-romania-on-the-list-of-countries-with-a-low-risk-of-infection/
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html
