This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/world/europe/hungary-borders-europe.html

The article has changed 31 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Closed Borders Within Europe Unleash Congestion and Chaos Locked-Down Europe Faces Closed Borders, Economic Wounds and Dire Warnings
(about 7 hours later)
BUDAPEST — European leaders’ decision to fight the spread of the coronavirus by closing land borders proudly thrown open 25 years ago has left drivers angry, goods stranded and traffic backed up for miles across the heart of a continent used to letting its residents pass through with virtually no checks. Drivers faced daylong waits to cross European borders that nations raced to close on Wednesday, years after proudly throwing them open. Britain closed schools to millions of children amid talk of shutting down London. And Germany’s stoic leader made an unusually personal appeal for unity and purpose in the face of crisis.
The pledge that the movement of goods would not be interrupted by the measures appeared to be failing badly on Wednesday, especially in Hungary, the landlocked nation that has suddenly become a bottleneck in Europe. Prime Minister Viktor Orban carried through with his promise on Monday to close the borders to all foreign nationals — leaving road travelers stranded and fuming. Across an increasingly locked-down Europe, people and their governments struggled to adjust to the grim, immobilized life wrought by the new coronavirus epidemic, their every adjustment seemingly a step behind the worsening reality.
After many international airlines cut flights and the United States banned travel from most of Europe, plans were thrown into disarray and airports became scenes of panic and confusion. A similar scene has been playing out for days on a larger scale on European roads. The continent passed a bleak milestone that few envisioned last month, when the virus was ravaging China but had barely touched the West: As of Wednesday, by official government counts, it had infected and killed more people in Europe — more than 82,000 cases and more than 3,400 dead — than in China.
Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbians and Ukrainians on either side of the main Austria-Hungary crossing have left their cars and sat on the main road, preventing any vehicles from crossing in either direction in an effort to pressure the authorities to open the crossing. And as China slows the rate of new infections to almost zero, in Europe, now at the heart of the global outbreak, the virus is spreading faster than ever. Less than two months after the European Union sent relief supplies to China, the bloc announced that it was receiving badly needed masks and virus testing kits from China.
Truckers trying to transport goods to and from nations like Poland and Germany were enduring 30-hour waits. Slovaks working in Hungary were left with no sense of when they would be able to cross back home because of backups at the Hungary-Slovakia border. A day after she and other European Union leaders agreed to close the bloc off to almost all travelers, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany made a televised address on Wednesday, posing a stark choice to her nation: Abide by newly imposed restrictions on individual movement and contact with others to avoid spreading the virus, or watch the epidemic overwhelm the health care system.
“This is serious,” Ms. Merkel said. “Take it seriously. Since German reunification — no, since World War II — our country has never faced a challenge where we depended so much on our collective actions and solidarity.”
The chancellor drew a striking parallel to her personal history. She lived more than half her life in the former East Germany, behind a wall, her movements constrained by the state.
“Let me assure you: For someone like me, for whom the freedom to travel and move was a hard-fought right, such restrictions can only be justified if they are an absolute necessity,” she said. “They should never be passed lightly and only ever temporarily — but they are indispensable at the moment to save lives.”
Reports of new cases and deaths in Europe accelerated on Wednesday. Among the countries with the biggest outbreaks, nearly all reported more new cases than they had in any single day before.
Italy, the hardest-hit country, confirmed more than 35,000 infections and almost 3,000 deaths. Spain had almost 14,000 people infected and more than 600 dead. France reported more than 9,000 cases, 264 of them fatal.
On a continent where people and commerce have crossed borders with little or no friction for a generation, the resurrection of border controls left drivers angry, goods stranded and traffic backed up for miles. Some supermarkets warned that they might not be able to keep shelves stocked.
Not only did the European Union authorize new controls on the bloc’s outer frontiers, but the free trade and free travel zone within Europe has broken down, with a dozen participating countries restoring old barriers.
The pledge that the movement of goods would not be interrupted appeared to be failing badly on Wednesday, especially in Hungary, the landlocked nation that has suddenly become a bottleneck in Europe. Prime Minister Viktor Orban carried out his promise on Monday to close the borders to all foreign citizens — leaving travelers stranded and fuming.
After many international airlines cut flights and the United States banned travel from most of Europe, plans were thrown into disarray and airports became scenes of panic and confusion.
A similar scene has been playing out for days on European roads.
Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbians and Ukrainians on either side of the main Austrian-Hungarian crossing have left their cars and sat in the road, preventing vehicles from passing in either direction in an effort to pressure the authorities to open the border.
Truckers trying to transport goods between Poland, which has imposed new border controls, and Germany were warned that they faced waits of four to 30 hours. Slovaks working in Hungary were left with no sense of when they would be able to cross back home because of backups at the Hungary-Slovakia border.
“We haven’t moved a single meter since 8 a.m.,” said Janos Fenyvesi, 68, a truck driver from Hungary who had been sitting in traffic on the Austrian side of the border since Tuesday afternoon.“We haven’t moved a single meter since 8 a.m.,” said Janos Fenyvesi, 68, a truck driver from Hungary who had been sitting in traffic on the Austrian side of the border since Tuesday afternoon.
He was pulling freight from Switzerland to Nyiregyhaza, in eastern Hungary, when his trip was brought to an abrupt stop about 16 miles from the Austria-Hungary border crossing. Mr. Fenyvesi was pulling freight from Switzerland to Nyiregyhaza, in eastern Hungary, when his trip was brought to an abrupt stop about 16 miles from the Austrian-Hungarian border. Now, he said, a trip that would normally have taken him two to three days may take twice as long.
“I don’t understand why the Austrian police haven’t removed these people from the freeway,” said Mr. Fenyvesi, adding that a trip that would normally have taken him two to three days may take twice as long. “These Romanians are not respecting the laws of Austria.” “I don’t understand why the Austrian police haven’t removed these people from the freeway,” Mr. Fenyvesi said.
Free movement of goods and people is a principle at the heart of the European Union, and a week ago, countries including Germany had derided President Trump’s decision to close the American borders to most of Europe. But as the number of infections has climbed worldwide — it was more than 200,000 by Wednesday — individual members of the 26 nations belonging to the borderless Schengen Agreement began throwing up controls and turning back nonresidents and others who were not able to prove a need to enter the countries. In Austria, the police said that traffic had backed up more than 20 miles toward Vienna, hindering movement within the country. Slovakia, Hungary’s neighbor to the north, also reported traffic backups stretching for miles, a critical concern for a country that imports more than half of its food.
Mr. Orban, who has portrayed Hungary as a historical bulwark of European Christian civilization, has long taken an especially hard line against asylum seekers and cracked down on migrants, closing the country’s southern border with Serbia and Croatia in 2015. Britain has lagged behind its European counterparts both in restricting movement and in making the limits mandatory. But on Wednesday the government followed their lead and ordered schools to close, except to the children of essential workers, presenting a new challenge to millions of parents who were already struggling to hold onto their jobs.
Since the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, the Hungarian leader and his allies have seized on the illness’s presence on the continent and linked it to migration. Hungary has also restricted access to asylum seekers at transit zones along the country’s southern border. There was also growing speculation about a strict lockdown in London, where the infection rate is relatively high, though government officials said they did not expect a decision until Friday at the earliest.
By midday on Wednesday, however, the protesters’ strategy appeared to have worked. Karl Nehammer, Austria’s interior minister, who had been consulting with his counterpart in Hungary since Tuesday to find a solution, announced that Hungary had reopened its border in an effort to ease the crunch. “We will take the right steps at the right time, guided by the science,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a news conference. “We will not hesitate to go further and faster.”
“E.U. citizens have to be allowed to return to their countries, and we must ensure that the traffic east of Vienna is able to flow,” Mr. Nehammer said. He observed at least one other new precaution: His weekly audience with Queen Elizabeth II, normally conducted in person, was held over the phone.
The Hungarian authorities urged its own citizens to use alternative border crossings. They also opened what it called a “humanitarian corridor” overnight Tuesday to allow Romanians to pass through Hungary on their way home, but the move did little to resolve the traffic jam. As governments try to institute “social distancing” to avoid spreading the contagion, the combination of scary news coverage, stern advice, restrictions on personal movement and mandatory closings of businesses and gathering spots has already caused much economic activity to screech to a halt.
The chaos from internal border closings in Europe rippled out across the continent in ways large and small. On Wednesday, Belgium joined Italy, France, Spain, Germany and others in ordering people to stay at home as much as possible. Belgians may go outside to walk, bike or exercise, but they must do it alone or with people who live in the same home, and stay away from others.
Images from the Austrian side of the border early Wednesday showed dozens of people standing and sitting along the concrete barriers that divide the traffic lanes; the highway resembled a giant parking lot. In France, the government proposed legislation allowing it to declare emergencies and govern by decree to some extent, including further restricting people’s movements and requisitioning goods and services from the private sector. Extending the emergency beyond 12 days would require the assent of Parliament.
In Austria, the police said that traffic had backed up more than 20 miles toward Vienna, hindering movement within the country. The police in Paris said that in a raid on a store, they had seized more than 15,000 masks needed by health workers that were headed for the black market, and more than 200 bottles of fake anti-bacterial gel.
Slovakia, Hungary’s neighbor to the north, also reported traffic backups stretching for miles, raising concerns about whether the country would be able to maintain supplies of critical goods. Slovakia imports more than 50 percent of its food from abroad. Grocers in France have been allowed to remain open, but Olivier Véran, the health minister, announced that the authorities would shut down open-air markets where people were not complying with distancing guidelines.
“We are very worried not just about our own existence, but about the work of all suppliers who are keeping this country running,“ Pavol Jancovic, president of a truck drivers’ alliance, told reporters on Tuesday. “Wherever it is impossible to enforce the distance of one meter between two people, we must intervene,” he said.
The Slovak police said they were trying to pull trucks with live animals, groceries and medicine from the traffic jam around the capital, Bratislava, which is close to the border with Austria, to help them cross more quickly. Europe’s disparate reactions echoed those of the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016, when Ms. Merkel stood out for her welcoming attitude toward people fleeing war and deprivation.
Congestion has also stymied travel between Germany and Poland, where the authorities warned that trucks faced waits of four to 30 hours, after the Polish government closed the country’s borders on Sunday. Some populist leaders, notably Mr. Orban, portrayed Middle Eastern and African asylum seekers as a threat to European, Christian civilization, and tried to shut them out. Now they are linking the coronavirus to migration, and citing it as a reason to erect barriers.
The move stalled traffic along all three major highways connecting Germany and Poland, according to Katharina Burkardt, a spokeswoman for the ministry of traffic in the German state of Brandenburg. Ms. Merkel seemed determined on Wednesday to appeal to empathy, civic spirit and reason, promising to communicate often and in detail about any further measures that might be taken. She urged Germans not to believe “rumors, just official announcements.”
On Tuesday, some German supermarkets told customers they could not guarantee that empty shelves would be restocked regularly, as there was no telling if deliveries would be able to make it through. “We are a democracy,” Ms. Merkel said. “We don’t live by coercion but by shared knowledge and cooperation. This is a historic task, and we can only manage it together.”
“We are calling on all citizens to avoid using the highways if at all possible so that trucks transporting goods and medicines can get through,” Ms. Burkardt said. The chancellor also warned against being overly sanguine.
Polish border officials blamed frustrated truckers for blocking the road on the German side of the border Tuesday afternoon, making it difficult for Poles trying to return homes. “These aren’t abstract numbers in a statistic,” Ms. Merkel said. “They are a father or a grandfather, a mother or a grandmother, a partner. It’s people. And we are a community in which every life and every person counts.”
“There was one more incident of this kind today, but the situation has already been resolved,” a spokeswoman for the Polish Border Guard, Maj. Joanna Konieczniak, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Many truckers are angry that passenger vehicle traffic is faster than truck traffic, and they act out.” Benjamin Novak reported from Budapest, Melissa Eddy and Katrin Bennhold from Berlin, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Aurelien Breeden from Paris; Stephen Castle from London; Joanna Berendt from Warsaw; Miroslava Germanova from Bratislava, Slovakia; Steven Erlanger and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels, and Raphael Minder from Madrid.
Later on Wednesday, Polish officials agreed to open four more crossings to vehicles in an effort to ease the traffic jam and ensure that cargo could get through.
In Spain, where the border closure came into force at midnight on Monday, no such confusion was recorded and trucks were able to cross normally, José Ángel González, a director of the national police, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
He added that the police had checked about 1,500 vehicles and detained two people: one for disobeying the rules and another because the driver had an arrest warrant.
Benjamin Novak reported from Budapest, and Melissa Eddy from Berlin. Joanna Berendt contributed reporting from Warsaw; Miroslava Germanova from Bratislava, Slovakia; and Raphael Minder from Madrid.