When will the borders with Europe open in 2020

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

The media are increasingly publishing forecasts of specialists who are confident in a total reduction in tourist flows between countries and the development of domestic tourism. We tried to find out the opinions of experts about when the borders with Europe will be opened in 2020.

Brief background and current events

The borders in the European Union were closed at a time when the situation had not yet acquired such a total negative development, as it is now observed in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Great Britain and Turkey.

And on March 18, at a video summit held by the leaders of the EU member states, it was decided to close the borders for a month - until April 18. The Schengen area has been declared closed to everyone except EU citizens.

1. The decision was made to confirm the nominal fact of the ban on entry into the EU. The EU government said it was not interested in the fact that many Schengen countries had already closed their borders on their own initiative.
2. The adopted decision applied to all countries that are part of the territorial association. This did not save Switzerland, in which there were more than 20 thousand cases, Italy and Spain, which are now showing a high mortality rate, Germany, where citizens returned to vacationing abroad.
3. It is no secret that for many European countries it is tourism that is one of the most profitable industries, and often the main source of income that forms the budget.

But already on March 20, tourism expert Fernando Gallardo expressed the opinion that in the long term, due to the coronavirus epidemic, there will be a total reduction in tourist flows. He expressed confidence that tourists from China, the country that has defeated the epidemic, will give preference to travel across its vast territory to avoid the risk of a new pandemic.

And even if the then forecast is correct, when the borders with Europe will be opened in 2020 (the estimated date was called the end of April - the beginning of May), it is not a fact that people will start traveling immediately after that.

Estimated dates

Marcelo Risi, a spokesman for the World Tourism Organization, at about the same time announced the need to revise the previously released figures for the fall in tourism sector revenues.

In his opinion, even if the forecast when the European borders will be opened in 2020, the correct and expected event will take place at the end of May - beginning of June, this does not mean that people will start traveling around the world again.

At the beginning of April, there is no need to talk about the imminent opening of European borders, even if the coronavirus vaccine is created in the coming week and begins to be massively applied.

Then, on March 18, M. Shchelokov, the head of the laboratory of the Far Eastern University, shared his vision of the situation with Izvestia. He was convinced that it was extremely premature to talk about when the closed borders with Europe would open.

Even then, the microbiologist was sure that the situation with the coronavirus in the Old World would get out of control if the European Union did not change its tactics of countering the epidemic.

He named several factors that could influence the optimistic forecasts regarding the timing of when the borders with Europe will be opened:

• in 2020, the European Union is a highly mosaic area (there is a huge difference in the resources and structure of health care);
• there is a difference in population density, average age, environmental conditions, social conditions;
• the existence of a common power does not exclude latent opposition from individual members, premature closure or opening of borders.
• As a vivid illustration, one can cite Turkey, which closed its own sky only after Russia, on March 27, but this did not save it from the daily increase in the number of cases. Simply because a significant number of virus carriers with a latent form or incubation period have already accumulated in the country.

An important aspect influencing the timing, pessimism or optimism of forecasts in 2020, the virologist considers the lack of a vaccine.

Even with effective therapy (and this has already been developed on the experience of Chinese doctors, there are medicines that help in the treatment of coronavirus), it is difficult to make a prognosis for Europe. Quarantine measures were delayed and there are too many potential sources of infection.

Prediction accuracy

The media devote a lot of time to polling experts, their opinions and assumptions, but no one can give an exact answer. Previously, it was assumed that in the United States the pandemic would be overcome in record time, since it has great financial capabilities.

However, dissemination practice showed that these assumptions were unfounded. The difficulty in determining the timing of the opening of European borders lies in the disunity of the countries.

As soon as it came to revenue and mutual assistance, countries with a favorable situation refused any assistance to the infection clusters - Italy and Spain.

Even if in some EU member states the epidemic is successfully defeated by the end of May, this does not mean that the situation will stabilize in the top five anti-leaders in the incidence rate. And since not only the general, but also the internal borders are closed, it is likely that the epidemic will subside in early summer or even by the fall of 2020.

Fernando Gallardo expressed confidence that the restoration of the tourism industry will be a long-term process. The first trips between the countries will begin only in July of this year, even if everything in Europe ends in May.

Summarize

1. The timing of the opening of borders with Europe is uncertain; they depend on several circumstances.
2. The difficult situation is expected to end in clusters of infection with a high mortality rate.
3. The decision of the EU government on the possibility of opening external borders is important.
4. A decree is required to open the borders of individual EU member states.
5. There must be a decision by Russia on the possibility of its citizens leaving for European territory - after all, for travel, a mutual removal of quarantine barriers is needed.