An Overview of Romania’s Pandemic Measures and their Effect upon Travel across the Romanian-Hungarian Border
An Overview of Romania’s Pandemic Measures and their Effect upon Travel across the Romanian-Hungarian Border

Summary/Abstract: The coronavirus broke out in Europe in January 2020, throughout February and March, the number of pandemic-related measures increasing significantly. The crisis leads to the introduction of unprecedented restrictions across Member States, and the variety of national responses intensified with the evolution of the pandemic. In terms of internal measures, the most common choice was the introduction of a lockdown, while external measures generally included travel and entry restrictions and the reintroduction of border checks. Restrictions and bans on travel have an especially important meaning in the Schengen Area, the „borderless‟ part of Europe. The article aims at making a radiography of government measures introduced in the fight against the pandemic in the European Union, with a special focus on Romania the effects of the restrictive measures on cross-border travel behaviour and patterns across the Romanian-Hungarian border. To achieve this, an online survey was conducted to analyse to what extent restrictive measures targeting travel affected cross-border travel towards Hungary. Both Romania and Hungary have followed the EU trend in their measures, and it seems that these, more or less, had an impact only on the frequency of travels across their shared border. Other aspects, such as changes in border-crossing process and citizen‟s acceptance of their domestic restrictions are also analysed here.

• Details
• Contents