Covid-19 put to the test the unity of action of the European Union from the first day and the balance of the community response was positive. Despite the fact that the pandemic hit EU countries hard, the Commission knew how to act with the necessary determination and it achieved a broad majority reaction, especially with regard to the centralized management of the purchase and management of vaccines. This attitude allowed to shore the resistance of the community bureaucracy and act with the speed that the times demanded. There were, certainly, difficulties in the adoption of common regulations, related to freedom of movement and border control, but, in general, can speak of success which was later extended to policies aimed at coping with the economic and social consequences of the pandemic.
Despite the fact that Europe knew a general decrease in covid cases During the past summer, the alarms of the health systems have sounded again as a result of a rebound in cases aggravated by the appearance of respiratory infections of different signs typical of autumn and winter. Added to this situation are external factors that could aggravate the situation again and that have led the EU to cautiously adopt new prevention measures. Among these, the fact that the regime of Xi Jinping has decided to abandon the zero covid policy ratified by the Communist Party Congress at the end of October. The protests against a policy that lacked scientific basis and had unsustainable social and economic consequences forced a turn that the Beijing government took abruptly, causing millions of cases and an inevitable balance of fatalities that the regime has falsified. Faced with the risk that this late outbreak of covid in China could trigger a new wave of the pandemic worldwide, the EU and many countries must adopt sensible policies to protect their borders. It’s not about discriminating against anyone. but to protect a European population that has been largely immunized against the strains of the virus that circulate in the countries of the continent but that could react less effectively against new strains of the virus that will take place among a population of 1.4 billion people who are not vaccinated or are vaccinated with vaccines of doubtful efficacy.
are not acceptable complaints from the Beijing government, that he must assume his responsibility in what happens in his country, and that he reacted drastically towards the rest of the world while he dreamed of keeping his country out of the epidemic. In this sense, it seems to us that the decisions adopted by the mechanism of Integrated Political Response to Crises (IPCR, a body that reports to the EU presidency) -recommending a mask on flights and a negative covid test, among other measures-, constitute a proportionate response to the existing risks. Europe has acted generously, offering the Chinese government state-of-the-art vaccines that are more effective than those produced by China. Europeans have paid a heavy price to deal with covid, and the EU institutions must guarantee the continuity of a successful policy based on threat monitoring. The measures adopted in relation to travelers from China seem reasonable, as may be, in the future, others derived from the study being carried out by experts from a strain detected on the North American east coast and that it could be more contagious and difficult to contain with current vaccines, according to the first information.