European Union leaders rebuked the United States Thursday for not having consulted them before imposing a unilateral travel ban on arrivals from countries in the Schengen passport-free zone.
"The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action," EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel said.
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"The European Union disapproves of the fact that the US decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation," their joint statement goes on to say.
The rebuke comes in response to a ban on all EU travelers and those who visited the Schengen zone in the past two weeks, which US President Donald Trump announced late Wednesday.
Trump said the ban on travelers from the zone would come into effect at midnight Friday, and would not affect US citizens returning from Europe. Britain, which is not part of the Schengen zone – or, at this point, the EU – will not be affected by the ban.
The US president briefly caused alarm as he announced that a "tremendous amount of trade and cargo" would also be banned, forcing officials to clarify the measures would apply only to humans, not goods.
While the UK is not part of the travel ban, British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak also seemed to push back on Trump's move in an interview for BBC radio.
"The advice we are getting is that there isn't evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans are going to have a material effect on the spread of the infection," he said.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS
