The EU Commission is proposing tougher measures to combat the coronavirus. Among other things, travel within the European Union and from outside, according to the Brussels authority, should be further restricted.

In addition, she suggested on Monday that the test and quarantine rules should be tightened even further. Accordingly, a new “dark red” category is to be introduced for high-risk areas with more than 500 new infections per 100.000 inhabitants within the past two weeks. Unnecessary trips to or from these areas should be urgently discouraged, said EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders. This applies not only to cross-border travel, but also to movements within a country. For travelers from the dark red areas, the EU Commission believes that a PCR test should be mandatory before departure, as well as quarantine on arrival. EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson said: "The first recommendation is: don't travel."

Most EU countries only allow urgently necessary entries and make exceptions for EU citizens and their relatives, according to the ORF. But that shouldn't be the case in the future either. The EU Commission proposes, among other things, to make a negative PCR test mandatory within 72 hours before departure. The authority is also pushing for stricter rules for travelers from countries in which particularly active virus variants have been discovered. In Austria, quarantine and testing has been mandatory when entering from almost all countries in the world since mid-December. Since mid-January, electronic registration has also been mandatory before entering Austria. In addition, according to the Foreign Ministry, a worldwide travel warning applies - with a handful of exceptions.