EC President Ursula von der Leyen has announced the introduction of dark red zones to denote new coronavirus hot spots in Europe and travelers from those areas will be required to take a test before departure and undergo quarantine upon arrival at their destination.

“A dark red zone would show that in this zone, the virus is circulating at a very high level,” von der Leyen said on Friday, at a briefing after a video summit between EU leaders focusing on ways to harmonise measures to fight the pandemic.

The labelling of epidemiological areas does not depend on national borders.

Von der Leyen cited as an example a case wherein one member country the border would be closed in the border area while in the neighbouring member country with the same epidemiological situation it would be open.

In that case everyone from the first member country would go shopping to the other country, thus contributing to the spreading of the virus, she said.

European Council President Charles Michel said that member countries’ leaders were agreed that it was necessary to consider the possibility of restricting all non-essential travel.

“In terms of non-essential movements restrictions should be possible to consider,” he said, adding that borders had to stay open for the sake of the normal functioning of the single market.

Both Michel and von der Leyen pointed to the danger of virus mutation and new, much more infectious strains. There is therefore a consensus to step up virus genome sequencing in order to identify mutations on time.

The EU leaders also discussed vaccination certificates, with Michel saying that there was agreement on standardised certificates for medical purposes but that it was too early to speak of their other purposes.

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis proposed that the certificates should serve as passports to revive tourism.

Michel said that it was too early for that until a sufficiently large number of people got vaccinated as otherwise, it would lead to discrimination against people who did not get the opportunity to get vaccinated.