Belgium: Belgium announced to ban all non-essential travel to and from its territory due to covid-19, anybody eager to get in or out of the nation will likely be required to hold a “declaration on honor” to show that their border-crossing is, actually, essential.
A template form for the declaration on honor – which is an announcement by which a traveler declares that cross-border journey falls under a category of journeys that are considered important by the authorities – will likely be made available online so it can be downloaded and printed if necessary.
The form will be put online at a similar time that the Ministerial Decree with the newest measures will likely be published by Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden. According to her cabinet, that is expected to happen by Tuesday morning.
The declaration should be linked to the Passenger Location Form (PLF), which needs to be accomplished by individuals who have been abroad for at least 48 hours and needs to be supported by the necessary documents.
Whereas the police will perform targeted checks alongside the border and in airports and train stations to see if individuals’ declaration corresponds to reality, Verlinden acknowledged that not each traveler will likely be checked.
People living along the border are allowed to cross the border anyway (as they’re listed as one of the exceptions), however, they also have to carry a declaration of honor, The doc only needs to be filled out once, with the reason why their journeys are essential. “It’s not the case that a new form has to be stuffed out every single day till 1 March, we don’t need to make life unnecessarily tough, we only want to prevent the virus from spreading through tourism,” she mentioned.
Following Friday’s Consultative Committee, Belgium’s authorities decided on the six reasons that warrant an exception to the ban on travel:
- Business travel.
- Cross-border commuters will still be allowed to cross the border for actions that are also allowed in Belgium without going through the quarantine, however for a period of up to 48 hours.
- Humanitarian causes: help to an aged, minor or weak person or an individual with a disability, visiting family in palliative care, and relocations for medical causes and continuation of medical treatment.
- Traveling for studies: travel of pupils, students, and trainees on exchange within the framework of their research, in addition to researchers with a hosting agreement.
- Compelling household causes: household reunification, visits to a spouse or accomplice who does not stay under the same roof (if plausible proof of a stable and lasting relationship can be offered), trips for co-parenting, civil and religious weddings, funerals, or cremations (of relatives or next of kin).
- Various: care for animals, journeys throughout the framework of authorized obligations (if they can’t be made digitally), urgent repairs throughout the framework of the security of an automobile, and moving home.
