There is a viral pandemic sweeping the world, and it has exposed the poor leadership most people have to put up with. The question of travel is a case in point. There is a simple solution to concerns about people entering another country, bringing disease. If travellers want to cross your border, they have to agree to be tested for illness and to pay for that testing.
For a while this simple policy was put into practice by the Austrian government at the fairly hefty price of €190 per person. Provided the test came out negative, the traveller could set off from the airport to explore Austria 3 to 6 hours after undergoing the test.
But then centralised government in the form of Brussels got involved. Did they take up Austria’s excellent initiative and ensure that it would be put into operation everywhere? Such an approach could safely open up EU countries for those tourists - from absolutely anywhere -willing to pay €190 to be tested. That opening up might save some of the thousands of jobs that depend on tourism.
No, of course they didn't. Instead, after lengthy discussions, a strategy to complicate matters and ensure life became more difficult for everyone was devised.
A list of countries whose citizens could travel freely in the European Union was announced. Rather than clarifying things, this just made things more perplexing, particularly as individual European countries quickly decided to assert their independence by adding their own caveats. Czechia announced that the list was all very well, but unless the countries on it reciprocated and let in Czech citizens, they could go jump. Meanwhile, because the UK is not on the EU’s list, it suddenly became impossible for any UK citizen to leave and then reenter Hungary, even if that citizen holds a Hungarian residency card. For a brief moment it looked as if Australian passport holders, with or without residency cards, were now allowed to travel in and out of the country freely, as Australia is on the EU's approved list. Then the Hungarian government decided that the citizens of all the non-EU countries on the EU's list were barred too.
Even before the Humgarian announcement though, there was a catch for most Australians who wanted to visit Hungary - or anywhere else for that matter. In a move worthy of the DDR, Australia’s government announced that not only can no one other than Australian citizens enter the country (and even they will have to go through a 2-week quarantine, confined to a hotel room of the government’s choice, but at the individual’s expense) but also no one will be allowed to leave the country without special permission until July 2021!
This seems to me to be evidence of the dangers of power when it is exercised without imagination. There might be a good deal of complexity in setting up an incoming testing regime for travellers but, if, as the Sydney Morning Herald alleges, the Australian economy is facing a $55 billion hit as a result of the decision to ban all incoming and outgoing tourism, then it is the duty of elected leaders and their servants in the bureaucracy to sort out that complexity and create a system that works.
Leaders everywhere need to start really focusing on the plight of the many, many people who run tourist-related businesses. Instead of going for the easy option of prohibition, they all - not just in Australia but across the world - need to start doing some really hard work to provide solutions such as the one pioneered by Austria. There are ways to stay safe and to go back to normal life. It is the job of governments to identify those and to put them rapidly into effect.
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