The recommendations were adopted by the European Commission on 4 September when Brussels called on the European Union member states to coordinate and clearly articulate at the EU level their measures which restrict the freedom of movement and which are taken to curb the spread of the novel virus.
The Commission adopted the regulations on a coordinated approach to the restriction of free movement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic after it was established that the pertaining measures of member states differed a great deal.
Bozinovic said at today's government meeting that Croatia considered the recommendations a step forward. Croatia supports efforts to have common criteria for collecting and interpreting data on the epidemic, he added.
Based on the data provided by the member states, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control should publish a map of EU/EEA countries, broken down by regions, in order to support member states’ decision making. In this map, an area should be marked in three colours depending on the number of 14-day cumulative COVID-19 cases.
The green is if the 14-day cumulative COVID-19 case notification rate is less than 25 and the positivity rate of tests for COVID-19 infection is less than 3%. The orange is if the 14-day cumulative COVID-19 case notification rate is less than 50 but the test positivity rate is 3% or more, or, if the 14-day cumulative COVID-19 case notification rate ranges from 25 to 150 but the test positivity rate is less than 3%. The red is if the 14-day cumulative COVID-19 case notification rate is 50 or more and the test positivity rate is 3% or more, or if the 14-day cumulative COVID-19 case notification rate is more than 150 per 100,000 people.
Each week, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is supposed to publish an updated version of the map.
Bozinovic said that all the recommendations were aimed at making sure that all restrictions of the freedom of movement were in place where necessary and that those measures were imposed in a coordinated, proportionate and non-discriminatory manner.