Introduction

• Author: Rubio, Jean; Peyrony, Jean; Viaggi, Raffaele
• Pages: 4-5

4

INTRODUCTION

The European Union is a place of many countries and hence many national borders.

Between the Member States and Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Andorra,

there are close to 40 land borders. Around 150 million Europeans live in border

regions.

In recent years, work undertaken by the European Commission services has

highlighted a number of legal and administrative obstacles along many EU internal

borders. Over the past 5 years, the European Commission has unveiled evidence

to demonstrate that significant obstacles negatively affect life in border regions.

Many aspects are affected such as difficult access to employment, to healthcare,

complex access to education and training, use of different technical standards,

non-recognition of qualifications, lack of local cross-border public transport. Even

in sectors where there is a comprehensive European legal framework, obstacles

appear which can be clearly linked to the presence of a national border.

In March 2020, Europe was confronted to its most severe crisis since World War II

when it was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The infection created havoc across

Europe and many Member States took a series of far-reaching measures to fight

the pandemic. Prevention measures to contain the spreading of the virus are

unquestionably necessary.

However, these should lead neither to unjustified constraints of movements, nor

to violations of fundamental European principles, such as the four freedoms.

Sanitary measures should be taken based on their public health effectiveness, and

not based on administrative boundaries. For example, it does not make sense to

prevent citizens from circulating within one city simply because it this crossed by

a national border.

Among the measures taken by Member States, some have touched upon national

borders in a disproportionate way. Most MS closed their national borders, including

with Schengen and/or EU neighbours. The overnight closing of normally very open

borders has had serious consequences for the cross-border communities: health

care services have been affected as workers from a neighbouring town or region

could not reach their places of employment; frontier workers were prevented from

either going to work or returning home; families were split, people in care were

separated from their loved ones for long periods of time, etc. Emergency measures

taken to financially support enterprises or self-employed individuals badly affected

by loss of business have sometimes discriminated cross-border entrepreneurs.

The present document aims at drawing lessons from an assessment of the impact

of the COVID-19 measures along EU internal borders on cross-border communities

at large (businesses, workers, citizens) and presenting recommendations for the

future, addressed to the European Commission on how the resilience of cross -

border regions could be improved in case further crises emerge.

Preliminary research has consisted in mapping the measures directly linked to

borders taken by all MS and Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein – border by

border, from March to end of June 2020. The immediate impact of these measures

on cross-border communities has been outlined, analysed in-depth, and illustrated

with 20 concrete illustrations. The reactions of Member States to the “Guidelines