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The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. We've had Schengen for a long time, which meant no border checks whatso

The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. We've had Schengen for a long time, which meant no border checks whatsoever on most borders (we were driving through without even stopping or slowing down most of the time). With this vaccine passport, Schengen is pretty much history and that removes one of the main liberties the EU was offering.

p49k 5y ago
Schengen has been deteriorating for a long time. Denmark has totally ignored it and has road checks at the border for more than 5 years now and other nations have done similar (although to a less extreme extent).
- pjerem 5y ago
  I’ve been to Denmark two years ago and I have no memory of any border check. It was by plane btw, maybe the checks are different but it would be surprising. It is totally possible however that the check was so fast that I don’t remember it. Do you have any information about this ?
  - ben_bai 5y ago
    Can't speak for Denmark. But usually those border-checks are done couple km/miles after the border. Police will just stop "random" cars/trucks and do a "routine check". And "random" it might be as much as 50% of the passing cars.
  - p49k 5y ago
    Note I said “road checks” as in arriving by car. They totally closed the border and stop basically all non-Danish license plates for inspection. They are only supposed to be able to do this for emergencies for a max of 6 months. Instead, every 6 months they declare a new “emergency” so they can keep it closed indefinitely.
gattilorenz 5y ago
> The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. At least in Italy, movement was restricted inside regions (sometimes provinces) of the same country due to the epidemy. It's not nice for anyone involved, but the primary goal is to stop/limit the contagion. I'm an expat, so it goes against one of my interests, but I'm in favor of limiting border crossings, unless you can show that you won't spread COVID around.
gls2ro 5y ago
As long as we can have quarantine of cities, then we will have quarantine of countries => deadlock, each country, like now will restrict movement from other countries, thus making the freedom of movement almost impractical for everybody. So I think in this case (we are in a global pandemic) it makes sense to see freedom of movement not in a binary way (yes/no) but more in shades: allow more movement of more people as we get better at containing the pandemic. Also please note EU is not a federal state, nor many of the founding members want that to be. So countries have a lot of power to decide how to handle pandemic. Still I think EU as a block did a good job negotiating vaccines in the context of not having a unity or a fast decision process. So while I don't agree with restricting rights, I also don't agree with restricting rights of people who can move (like the ones vaccinated or immunised naturally) just because everybody cannot do it (cannot get vaccinated for personal or medical reasons).

p49k 5y ago

Schengen has been deteriorating for a long time. Denmark has totally ignored it and has road checks at the border for more than 5 years now and other nations have done similar (although to a less extreme extent).

pjerem 5y ago
I’ve been to Denmark two years ago and I have no memory of any border check. It was by plane btw, maybe the checks are different but it would be surprising. It is totally possible however that the check was so fast that I don’t remember it. Do you have any information about this ?
- ben_bai 5y ago
  Can't speak for Denmark. But usually those border-checks are done couple km/miles after the border. Police will just stop "random" cars/trucks and do a "routine check". And "random" it might be as much as 50% of the passing cars.
- p49k 5y ago
  Note I said “road checks” as in arriving by car. They totally closed the border and stop basically all non-Danish license plates for inspection. They are only supposed to be able to do this for emergencies for a max of 6 months. Instead, every 6 months they declare a new “emergency” so they can keep it closed indefinitely.

gattilorenz 5y ago

> The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. At least in Italy, movement was restricted inside regions (sometimes provinces) of the same country due to the epidemy. It's not nice for anyone involved, but the primary goal is to stop/limit the contagion. I'm an expat, so it goes against one of my interests, but I'm in favor of limiting border crossings, unless you can show that you won't spread COVID around.

gls2ro 5y ago

As long as we can have quarantine of cities, then we will have quarantine of countries => deadlock, each country, like now will restrict movement from other countries, thus making the freedom of movement almost impractical for everybody. So I think in this case (we are in a global pandemic) it makes sense to see freedom of movement not in a binary way (yes/no) but more in shades: allow more movement of more people as we get better at containing the pandemic. Also please note EU is not a federal state, nor many of the founding members want that to be. So countries have a lot of power to decide how to handle pandemic. Still I think EU as a block did a good job negotiating vaccines in the context of not having a unity or a fast decision process. So while I don't agree with restricting rights, I also don't agree with restricting rights of people who can move (like the ones vaccinated or immunised naturally) just because everybody cannot do it (cannot get vaccinated for personal or medical reasons).