Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response

Covid-19: Legislative Framework Underpinning the State's Response

Dr. Gianni Buquicchio:

This is a much larger problem because this shows the lack of harmonisation at EU and other levels. In my opinion all these rules must be co-ordinated and harmonised in Europe, the Schengen area and internationally in respect of other countries outside Europe. As the committee is aware, the epidemic is increasing again in France, Spain and so on. There are some countries which are again taking new measures to restrict movements between the borders. I have been informed that the European Union will discuss this chaos, because it has been chaos up to now, on 22 September to try to harmonise all the legislation concerning reciprocity between the different countries. There must be one European rule.