It didn't take long for Europe to abandon the pandemic's greatest lesson. The principle of a collective response to threats, which is one of the main postulates of the EU Health Union, was ignored at the first sign of a problem, writes Politico.

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All it took was a spike in COVID cases in China for several EU countries to go their separate ways and introduce travel measures criticized by EU bloc scientific experts as 'unjustified'.

As China abandons its "

Italy, at one time one of the hardest hit on the continent, became the first EU nation to take action, introducing mandatory testing for travelers arriving from China, leaving the EU scrambling to get ahead of yet another bloc-wide discordant backlash that marked some of the.

According to the French Le Figaro, the country is introducing a series of medical measures for travelers from China.. First, all passengers from China, both direct and connecting, will be required to present a negative test at the time of departure in less than 48 hours. Secondly, wearing a mask will be mandatory on all aircraft from China..

Returning to the situation in Europe as a whole, the meeting of the EU Security Committee on Thursday led countries to decide not to take any joint measures on travel, with the Commission tweeting that “coordination of national responses to serious cross-border health threats is extremely important.

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But that hasn't stopped Spain from introducing measures of its own: The health ministry announced on Friday that travelers arriving from China must be fully vaccinated or test negative..

Countries such as Italy, the US, Japan and now Spain fear that China could be a breeding ground for new options.. But current scientific opinion is that this is unlikely given that China is far behind when it comes to options and those present in China will not be able to compete with strains circulating outside the country..

But this does not prevent the political dispute in the EU from starting anyway..

As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni urged the EU to take joint action, recognizing that Italy's action alone " Manfred Weber, head of the centre-right bloc of the European Parliament from the European People's Party, called for a bloc-wide mandatory testing for travelers from China.

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European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told health ministers in a letter sent on Thursday evening that the situation is " She and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus speak of the lack of reliable epidemiological data coming from China..