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Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

5 Jun

What's become clear this week is that travel within Europe is going to be more restricted and more cumbersome than it was last summer.

🇪🇺 is now 40% vaccinated, including almost all vulnerable people. Last summer we had no immunity, and cases didn't start to climb till September

The tourism sector is furious about this.

European politicians are paying lip service to the need to revive tourism, then putting out strategies and press conferences (as we saw in Belgium yesterday) that are discouraging travel.
brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-a…

Contrast this to what's happening right now in 🇺🇸 (which should have same vaccination rate as 🇪🇺 by the end of the month).

They've completely removed interstate testing/quarantines and most states fully reopening tourism.

Is Europe being overcautious?
usnews.com/news/best-stat…

Read 5 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

4 Jun

🇪🇺 now opening up to vaccinated tourists from 🇺🇸. But 🇺🇸 is not returning the favor.

DC source doesn't expect US ban on Europeans (even those vaccinated) to end before *Autumn* at the earliest.

A lingering effect of exaggerated media coverage of 🇪🇺 vaccine situation?

Thread.

Looking at current 🇺🇸 entry ban list, we can see this is largely based on politics rather than caseloads.

Problem is, once you tell your citizens people from country X pose a danger to their health, it's politically difficult to end the ban.

But that's what EU is doing for US.

So, why will Europe remain on US ban list when its vaccination rate will soon be same as 🇺🇸? Is it an effect of months of exaggerated coverage of EU vax situation?

Here's situation now. 🇪🇺 expected to catch up with 🇺🇸 by July. 2 🇪🇺 countries already more vaccinated than 🇺🇸.

Read 7 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

2 Jun

@MargSchinas

Commission VP @MargSchinas announcing now a plan to restore full #Schengen free movement in the EU after being eroded during the pandemic.

He notes the migratory crisis in 2016 also put pressure on the Schengen system.

"This led to uncoordinated, sometimes blanket closures, and restrictions of free movement and the reintroduction of internal border controls that frankly I don't think helped a lot," Schinas says of national decisions during pandemic. "On the contrary they harmed our way of life"

EC is calling on member states not to jeapordise “one of the biggest achievements of European integration”

But to make #Schengen more resilient to acute crises, more central coordination is needed. Objective is to "integrate into Schengen code lessons learned from the pandemic"

Read 8 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

29 May

The idea has been floating around 🇮🇹Italy this week that Toto Cutugno should perform Italy's last winning song at next year's #Eurovision2022.

Would be quite a moment, because it's about the 🇪🇺Maastricht Treaty which created the #EuropeanUnion.

A thread.

#Insieme1992 (together in 1992, the year the Maastricht Treaty would take effect) is a remarkable reflection of the hope and optimism of the time, winning in 1990 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It is hard to imagine a song like this winning now, or even being allowed.

#Eurovision doesn't allow political songs. This year #Belarus was disqualified because their entry mocked anti-government protests.

It says something that in 1990 a song about uniting Europe into a confederation was not deemed political or contentious. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insieme:_…

Read 8 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

28 May

German FM: “We will continue to look at what consequences [these sanctions] will have in Belarus, whether #Lukashenko will give in"

"And if this is not the case, we have to assume that this will be only the beginning of a big and long spiral of sanctions" politico.eu/article/german…

Specific demand: To start, the release of more than 400 political prisoners.

Specific threat: New sanctions targeting companies from the potassium and phosphate sector and the financial sector such as payment transactions. Also a limit on Belarus issuing government bonds.

Meanwhile, #Russia is trying to crack EU unity on #Belarus by effectively banning EU flights from landing in Russia if they have bypassed Belarusian airspace.

Could this be extended to effectively banning EU flights from even entering Russian airspace?
dw.com/en/russia-proh…

Read 4 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

25 May

The outcome of the #ClimateChange discussion at #EUCO summit is frankly a disgrace.

Absolutely no progress. Poland's demand to dilute EU targets with burden-sharing based on GDP just kicked into the long grass. Whole paragraphs on non-ETS sectors dropped from draft conclusions.

In place of the deleted climate text in the conclusions, this has been added:

"The European Council will revert to the matter at an appropriate time after the Commission’s proposals have been submitted.”

But this discussion was supposed to guide the Commission's proposals.

It's clear that the #Belarus situation hijacked this #EUCO summit. The planned robust debate on EU climate policy didn't happen.

And this keeps happening, over and over. There will always be something more immediate and pressing that kicks climate off the agenda.

Read 4 tweets

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