European Flags at Half-Mast to Protest Border Closures
European Union flags along Luxembourg-German border have been flown at half-staff in protest over border closures within Schengen area.
According to the Syvicol president Emile Eischer, this gesture is meant to send a signal of hope for European unity, SchnegenVisaInfo.com reports.
The flags will continue to be at half-mast during the next coming days until May 9, in Europe’s Day celebration by the European Union. The same symbolic gesture across the country as well as in neighbouring municipalities in Germany, France, and Belgium is being discussed.
Some municipalities in the Moselle valley have also flown the European flag at half-mast, on Monday.
Regarding the border closure decision, that has been applied by a large share of countries, last month the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn once again criticised the decision, adding that the virus was spreading from person to person, not from country to country and the closed borders would not be any obstacle for COVID-19.
Through the video conference held last month with his colleagues from Austria, Germany, Lichtenstein and Switzerland, Alesslborn said that “these measures would not paint a very good picture on the 25th anniversary of the Schengen agreement, with German police patrolling the bridge to that very Luxembourgish community.”
According to him, the measures could not go on for too long “if we wanted to preserver the European ideas and values built-in Schengen”.
However, last month SchengenVisaInfo.com reported an updated list of the prolongation of borders has shown that the Schengen Member states are not planning to abolish the recently reintroduced temporary border controls any time soon.
The official website of the European Commission in charge of reporting on the reintroduced border controls shows that a large share of the Schengen Member States has extended their border checks in the recent days, for an additional 20 days.
