IANS | 22 Jan, 2021
Leaders of the European Union (EU) have agreed to consider further
restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus by strongly
discouraging non-essential travel between member states, European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
"All
non-essential travel should be strongly discouraged both within the
country and of course across borders," Xinhua news agency quoted von der
Leyen as saying at a press conference following a video summit of all
27 EU countries on Thursday.
She added that borders have to
remain open for essential workers and that the European single market
has to continue functioning without problems.
The leaders also
agreed to introduce another colour code -- dark red -- to indicate where
the virus is circulating at a very high level, according to Von der
Leyen.
The European Commission President also stressed the need
to accelerate vaccination, insisting that the summer deadline for the
inoculation of at least 70 per cent of the adult population was
"doable".
She said the EU is working closely with the European
Medicines Agency and vaccine producers to "provide more predictability
and stability" of the delivery process.
Noting "it is our
interest to share early enough vaccines with other regions of the
world," the EU leader said she had suggested a mechanism to share access
to some of the bloc's vaccines.
