The Belgium-Netherlands border will remain open with virus from now on Inland

The two spoke at the town hall of Baarle-Nassau in North Brabant. Literally a border place, because the separation between the Netherlands and Flanders cuts right through shops and houses. Several Dutch King’s Commissioners and their Belgian colleagues attended the meeting.

The closing of the border by the Belgians led to difficult situations from March. Families were separated, cross-border commuting was severely hampered. Grapperhaus: “There was constant mutual consultation during the crisis. This is the first time we have spoken in this setting. The closure of the border was a decision of the Flemish federal government. It was a hectic period, in which both countries had to work with the virus very quickly. ”

Safety

“You can’t really close the borders anymore,” says De Crem afterwards. “But it was not a matter of public order, but of public safety.”

Due to the difference in structures between the two countries, uniformity of measures according to both ministers is impossible. They do, however, strive to ‘make the differences overflow’ better in order to make the measures on both sides of the border more tolerable. Ministers will meet in Antwerp in the autumn.

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