BRUSSELS — The European Union is to hold crisis talks this afternoon over the new, more infectious strain of coronavirus that has spread throughout England and Wales, causing many of its European neighbors and nations further afield to close their borders to those traveling from the United Kingdom.
With France blocking entry from the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is scrambling to resolve the issue of delays to goods transportation which has been held up at the Channel as a consequence.
The leaders of Britain and France hope to resolve delays to goods transportation at their border "within hours", Johnson has said.
Measures agreed between Johnson and French President Emmanual Macron were expected to be announced on Tuesday and coming into effect on Wednesday, according to French Europe Minister Clément Beaune.
It comes as scores of lorry drivers spent a second night sleeping in their vehicles waiting for the frontier to reopen. The UK prime minister said the number of lorries waiting on the main motorway leading into the port of Dover in southeast England had reduced from 500 on Sunday night to 170.
The queues formed over the weekend as French authorities closed the border after Britain confirmed a new coronavirus strain was spreading rapidly through London and southeast England.
Several other European countries have introduced bans on passengers traveling from the UK, but the French restrictions also covered freight, leading to the delays.
A European Council source told Euronews that the EU had not yet decided on a coordinated approach and those travel restrictions remained at the discretion of member states, refuting earlier reports that an EU-wide travel ban would be introduced for 48 hours.
The EU is to hold crisis talks on a bloc-wide response to the issue of the new strain at 4 p.m.
The issue of travel from the UK could be included in the discussions.
Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said a joint position was important to ensure "a flight ban can't be circumvented via other European Union member countries".
Germany has now increased its restrictions on travel from the UK to Jan. 6.
The restrictions led British postal company Royal Mail to say it was temporarily suspending deliveries to several European countries including France and Germany.
Deliveries to countries further afield such as Canada and Turkey are also affected, the company said.
Johnson sought to assure the UK public that the border delays would not cause food shortages.
He told a televised news conference on Monday: "These delays, which are only occurring at Dover, only affect human-handled freight and that is only 20 percent of the total arriving from or departing to the European continent.
"This means the vast majority of food, medicines, and other supplies are coming and going as normal".
The European Medicines Agency said that there was "no evidence" that the new vaccines would not work against the new variant of coronavirus identified last week.
Johnson said that half a million people in Britain had now received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The European branch of the World Health Organization is also set to meet to discuss the new strain.
The head of the European branch, Hans Kluge, said on Twitter: "Limiting travel to contain spread is prudent until we have better info".
Spain and Portugal decided on Monday to suspend flights from the United Kingdom beginning on Tuesday. Spanish citizens and residents will still be able to enter the country, as long as they have a negative COVID test result.
Switzerland has banned entry for people coming from the UK and is requiring anyone who entered the country from there from Dec. 14 to undergo a 10-day quarantine.
Russia has also suspended air links with the UK for a week, with restrictions starting at midnight on Dec. 22, the government said in a statement. — Euronews
