BRUSSELS — European Union countries are expected to adopt guidelines next week aimed at coordinating their varying coronavirus travel measures, according to EU officials and diplomats involved in the talks. But the effort will stop well short of a harmonization of rules, as countries try to keep control over how they tackle a resurgence of the disease.

The guidelines are intended to make travel restrictions, such as quarantine and testing rules, smoother and more predictable within the bloc. It would be a first step at restoring one of the union’s main tenets: the free movement of people within its territory.

Representatives from the European Union’s 27 members, together with officials from the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, have discussed for weeks how to use shared criteria in judging regional responses to the coronavirus.

Central to that would be the adoption of a single map using colors to denote the scale of outbreaks around the bloc, green at the low end of risk, orange in the middle and red at the high end. Other measures include unifying how quarantines and testing are done to smooth travel between E.U. countries and ensuring ample warning when national travel advisories are about to change to ensure travelers don’t get stranded.

Source: New York Times

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