Statement by President von der Leyen at the joint press conference with President Michel, following the G7 Leaders' videoconference on COVID-19

Thank you very much Charles,

Indeed, we face a global health crisis and this global health crisis has a severe impact on people, but it also has a severe impact on our economies.

Today, indeed, in the G7 videoconference, we were sending a very strong message that by staying together, by working together and coordinating, we are able to weather this storm, which is a global storm, without any question. Coordination is of the utmost importance, you mentioned it, and therefore, we discussed indeed several topics we are working on.

First of all, the fact that we will have to take measures to limit and to slow down the spread of the virus. This is important so that our healthcare system is able to deal with the amount of patients that are severely ill and therefore, it is of utmost importance to take all these measures Member States are taking right now to slow down social contacts, to slow down public life and therefore, to slow down the spread of the virus.

On the other hand, this raises a lot of questions on how to maintain the rapid flow of goods and how to keep our economy agile and vital. In this context, we informed today our G7 partners that we propose to introduce a temporary restriction on non-essential travel to the European Union. Why that? Because we think that non-essential travel should be reduced right now, too, in order not to spread the virus further, be it within the European Union or by leaving the European Union, but also to avoid non-essential travel to not have more potential strain on our healthcare system.

Of course, there will be exemptions, for example for EU citizens coming back home, for healthcare workers, like doctors and nurses, but also scientists working on the solution of this health crisis we do see, and for people commuting on borders, who are working on both sides of the border, for example - there will be exemptions.

It is a restriction that should be in place for an initial period of 30 days and we have been talking about that with the G7 partners.

Second topic, we must coordinate the measures we take to avoid a negative impact on our people, our economies and our supply chains. This was a big topic and is a big topic between the Member States. It is important to look at the different measures and how they are taken, and I think of utmost importance is that neighbouring countries harmonise their measures, so that this is the same strong message to the people that the Member States are conveying, because here, this increases then the certainty for people to know that it is, yes, difficult at the moment being, but it is for the best of their health and for the moment, this is necessary.

Third, we need to restore global economic confidence. Indeed, it is time to support our economies with determination. That is what we are doing with all the appropriate instruments we have. We support the sectors that need it, we support our companies, we support the small and medium enterprises and above all, we support people. We support them in their jobs, we support them with their income losses. So right now, the focus is on strengthening our economies and investing whatever is necessary to have the economy going on further.

As I announced on Friday last week, the European Union has put in place an ambitious framework and we will not hesitate to take further action as the situation evolves.

Fourth and last point, indeed, we need to boost research on vaccines and therapies, also on diagnostics. It was interesting to hear in the G7 debate that there is a strong focus or strong support for CEPI, which is an initiative we started together - all those members of G7 - after Ebola, so it is coming from the lessons learnt from Ebola. CEPI is a platform of renowned scientists, this is also a message of strong coordination here, to put a lot of emphasis on a promising project, on a platform that has already proven that it is very effective in this area.

And finally, the international response should be broadened, and therefore, we agreed today to also call upon G20 to accelerate work so that our response is as effective as possible globally.

Thank you.