Time.news – The meeting of the mechanism on European crises (IPCR) convened to discuss the increase in Covid cases in China and possible common measures among the 27 EU countries will be held at 3 pm today. This was specified by a spokesman for the Swedish presidency of the EU Council, which began the six-month shift by taking the baton from the Czech Republic.
The meeting, he explained, is at a technical level and the presence of ministers is not expected. At the end, scheduled for around 18.30, there is no press conference but the dissemination of information from the presidency.
The wrath of China
Beijing has reacted angrily to restrictions placed by some countries on visitors arriving from China, such as the mandatory swab test, and threatens to implement countermeasures to “excessive practices” put in place. The harsh warning came from the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, who commented on the measures, calling them “unacceptable”, without scientific basis and animated by “political purposes”.
China is ready to strengthen communication with the international community to end the Covid-19 pandemic, the spokeswoman said, but “I believe that some countries adopt entry restriction measures only against China, which lack the basis science, and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable”.
China, he added, “strongly opposes the practice of manipulating pandemic prevention and control measures to achieve political goals, and we will take corresponding measures in accordance with the principle of reciprocity according to different situations.”
Among the countries that apply the restrictions there is also Italy, the first to place them in Europe, followed by those imposed by France, Spain, the United Kingdom, as well as those implemented by India, South Korea, Japan , Australia, the United States, Canada, Israel, to which Qatar has been added in the last few hours.
Meanwhile, according to reports from the Financial Times, the European Union has offered China free vaccines to counter the wave of infections in recent weeks: the Health Commissioner, Stella Kyriakides, got in touch with her Chinese counterparts to offer the EU support, including health expertise and vaccine supply. From Beijing, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry did not want to comment directly on the news, stating only that “the production of vaccines can satisfy the internal demand”.
Tajani: “We don’t want to offend”
“They seem to me to be very normal measures. Many Chinese but also many Italians from China do it. It is to protect health to swab, it has nothing offensive,” said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.