VILNIUS/BRUSSELS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- After some two months of border controls due to the coronavirus outbreak, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania reopened their shared borders on Friday, as more countries in Europe are easing up movement restrictions to salvage their battered economies.
The three Baltic states have agreed to reopen their internal borders for free movement of their peoples. Under the new rules, citizens and people legally residing in the three countries are allowed to travel through their borders without having to undergo the 14-day self-quarantine.
HOPE AND REASSURANCE
On Friday, foreign ministers of the three countries met and signed a memorandum of understanding reopening the Baltic states for travel by air, sea, road and rail, and outlining a plan for cooperation in combating the pandemic crisis.
"The meeting is not just a celebration. It is the beginning of hard work. I believe that the public has to receive hope and reassurance of an exit from the COVID-19 crisis. Such signals are really needed now," said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius, adding this was very important for the countries' economies, tourism services and also to the broad public.
However, only people who have not been to any other country outside the Baltics in the past 14 days and are not in mandatory self-insolation or quarantine will be allowed to travel across the borders.
The European Commission on Wednesday offered a tourism and transport package aiming to provide guidance for the European Union (EU) member states to gradually lift the internal travel restriction and reopen tourism, two months after strict measures were introduced to contain COVID-19.
The package included an overall strategy towards future recovery, a common approach to restoring free movement within the EU, a framework to support the gradual reestablishment of safe transport, a recommendation aiming to help protect consumers' rights concerning canceled trips due to the pandemic, and criteria for restoring tourism activities while ensuring health safety.
BATTERED ECONOMIES
According to WHO Europe, as of Thursday, there have been 1.78 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 160,000 deaths in the Region.
Aside form human tolls, economies in Europe are also devastated.
The German Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday that Europe's largest economy would have 81.5 billion euros (88 billion U.S. dollars) less tax revenues in 2020 than last year.
Meanwhile, the operating profit (EBIT) of Germany's large companies shrank by 23.5 percent to a total of around 20.3 billion euros (21.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020 compared to the same quarter last year, according to a study published by consulting firm Ernst & Young on Thursday.
Germany's largest carmaker Volkswagen announced on Friday that its global sales plummeted by 45.4 percent in April year-on-year to a total of 437,500 vehicles.
The National Statistics Institute (INE) of Portugal reported on Friday that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 2.4 percent in Q1 of 2020 compared to the same period of 2019. This was the biggest quarterly drop since Q1 of 2009.
The Dutch economy contracted by 1.7 percent in Q1 from the previous quarter. This was the biggest quarter-on-quarter drop since 2009 when the country's GDP fell 3.6 percent. Enditem
