Emilia Romagna, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia e autonomous province of Bolzano are the areas of Italy that could end up in the “dark red zone”, the new classification proposed by the European Commission on Monday. All EU regions should be included with at least 500 infected per 100 inhabitants. If the project goes through, anyone who leaves these areas - for whatever reason and also towards other Italian regions of different colors - will have to remain quarantined for 14 days.
However, it is not said that it will go that far. The European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, presented a provisional map at the press conference, based on outdated data. Furthermore, those proposed by Brussels are guidelines that will be discussed between governments and may be subject to change. Not to mention that the last word on travel within Italy belongs in any case to the Executive, which is not currently considering a tightening of the restrictive measures.
In any case, if the threshold of 500 infected per 100 thousand inhabitants is not changed, as many as 10 million Italians will find themselves in the dark red zone. This is enough to spark controversy. Emilia Romagna immediately made it known that the data that give it above 500 infections per 100 thousand inhabitants are old and that today it would be below. Not only that: the governor Bonaccini and the presidents of Veneto and Friuli – Zaia and Fedriga – have written a joint statement in which they reject the logic underlying the new area, which “it would penalize the administrations that carry out the highest number of swabs”, not operating on “objective epidemiological parameters”.
In addition to the Italian areas, the Iberian Peninsula (with the exception of Galicia and the Basque Country), some southern and central areas of France, Ireland, part of Germany, the Czech Republic, some areas of the Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic countries, part of Sweden and Cyprus. The rest of the Union, including Italy, would remain red, while Finland, Norway (included in the map even if it is not part of the EU) and Greece, which also has a green portion, with almost zero infections, would end up in orange.
