Bavaria and Austria want to enable and maintain small border traffic between the two countries. During a visit by European Affairs Minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) today to her Bavarian counterpart Florian Herrmann (CSU), both reaffirmed their will to keep the borders open in the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
Herrmann said that this was a “lesson” that Bavaria had learned from the “unpleasant situation” resulting from the closure of the border last March as a “voluntary commitment”. The people in the border areas should be able to live “as normally as possible” even in the pandemic, Edtstadler stressed. It was now necessary to create confidence in the Austrian, German and Bavarian measures to combat the pandemic. The “small border traffic” must be possible. It was possible to fight the pandemic and at the same time make economic, border traffic and tourism possible.
Weekly presentation of Test
In Germany, a new quarantine entry regulation is expected in the next ten days, which will allow the crossing of the border on return within 24 hours, for example for shopping purposes. In “anticipation” of this expected regulation, Bavaria will now already handle border traffic “pragmatically”, Herrmann promised.
Commuters, pupils and students should still be able to cross the border regularly. The prerequisite is the weekly presentation of a negative coronavirus test result. Austrian citizens could also be tested free of charge in Bavaria, said Herrmann. The test certificates are to be submitted to the district offices in Bavaria. He added that this practice, which was started in the Cham district on the border to the Czech Republic, had been well received.
There are “no restrictions” for German citizens entering Austria, Edtstadler emphasized. She called for a coordination of the regulations on border crossing in the EU in order to avoid problems like the border closures in March. She herself had experienced how “difficult” these consequences of the first lockdown had been for the citizens.
— hp, Source: orf.at. Picture: stockilyapp.com
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