[IMPORTANT NOTE: this is proposed as a thread for discussions of proposals for changes to travel policy to/from Europe (EU, Switzerland, UK, other European countries), which may thus be speculative in nature - too much so for other threads, but NOT an invitation to go OMNI on whether measures are good or bad, let alone questioning the nature of the illness)]
Throughout the forum, there have been a number of discussions about possible changes to travel policy to various parts of Europe (EU, UK, etc) which have often been deemed too speculative for more factual threads, but are still highly relevant to this forum as FTers are understandably seeking information in order to book future travel which may be affected by such policy changes. I propose to create this thread to discuss all those proposals, questions, and speculations.
To start with, there are discussions about the European Commission proposing to replace national systems by a unified traffic light system of green, orange, and red regions.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN25V255
The idea is that:
- the level of "risk" would be ascribed based on ECDC data and on regional level,
- there could be no restrictions on travel within the EU when it comes to green and orange regions
- there should be restriction when it comes to travel to/from red zones but all red zones should be treated equally, including within country
- the choice of restriction (tests, quarantine, etc) would be left to the appreciation of individual states
- thresholds for green, orange, and red zones would still need to be agreed by the Member States.
If this goes through, it would simplify travel within the EU by avoiding discrepancies in ratings from one country to the next and clarifying the regional level as the right "unit" to assess risk. Of course, a big problem is that different countries have currently very different levels of risk tolerance which may make it difficult for them to agree on thresholds, though this could be resolved by allowing some countries to decide to impose measures on orange regions (at this stage it is only proposed that tests could be "recommended" for orange regions).
Conversely, in the UK, there is currently some pressure from various quarters to move from quarantine to compulsory testing, and questions raised elsewhere as to whether the increase in infection rates in recent weeks could precipitate changes in policies either by making travel policy tougher or softer. I understand that a number of other non-EU European countries are currently considering some updates to their travel policy as rules initially planned as short term measures are now understood to need to last for months and possibly years to come.