BRUSSELS: The lightning spread of omicron in Europe and elsewhere added a sense of urgency to an EU summit on Thursday, with leaders struggling to present a united, bloc-wide approach.
Projections that the highly mutated Covid strain could be dominant in the EU as early as next month have pushed the issue to the top of the agenda and ignited fears of a health crisis.
omicron was “of significant concern,” Irish premier Micheal Martin said as he arrived, especially “in terms of the capacity of that variant to spread rapidly and create pressure on our societies and our health systems.”
The talks took place the same day France imposed drastic new restrictions on arrivals from Britain, which is outside the EU and particularly hard hit by the variant.
Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Europe was faced with “a battle against time” and should expect “new measures” to cope.
The summit was also to tackle other big topics pressing hard on EU capitals, in particular the Russian military build-up on the borders of Ukraine.
That risk dominated a get-together on Wednesday between EU leaders and their neighboring eastern European counterparts, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
An ongoing confrontation with Belarus over migration flows testing the EU’s borders and spiking energy prices aggravating sky-high inflation round out the agenda.
It all made for a charged summit, the last before France takes over the rotating six-month EU presidency from Slovenia in the New Year.
An EU official said leaders tackled the threat of omicron at the start of the summit and “reaffirmed that rollout of vaccination is urgent and crucial,” as were booster shots.
“Many leaders also raised international cooperation and (the) need to inform partners adequately on EU measures, and take proportionate action,” the official said.
There was “a focus on the importance of coherent and coordinated approaches when adopting national measures,” the official said.
That was an implicit slap at Italy, which has tightened entry restrictions for EU arrivals by requiring pre-arrival Covid tests even of vaccinated travelers.
The measures went against the rules of an EU Covid certificate that since July has ensured easy intra-EU travel without quarantine or tests for the vaccinated.
While EU countries can suspend some of the rules in health emergencies, they need first to notify Brussels 48 hours in advance. The European Commission says Italy did not do so.
Other EU countries — Ireland, Portugal and Greece — have also made similar moves to require EU arrivals to take tests.
Europe is bracing for an omicron winter, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen saying on Wednesday: “We’re told that by mid-January, we should expect omicron to be the new dominant variant in Europe.”
The timing is perilous. Although many EU countries are in the global vanguard in terms of vaccination rates, the rollout is patchy across the 27-nation bloc.
Nine EU countries have vaccination rates below 60 percent.
omicron’s apparent ability to mute the effects of existing vaccines has galvanized efforts to get booster shots into arms.
But the EU health agency ECDC on Wednesday warned jabs alone now would not be enough, given that omicron infections double around every two days.
“There will be no time to address the vaccination gaps that still exist,” said Andrea Ammon, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
“The coming months will be difficult,” acknowledged EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides.