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The coronavirus crisis has slammed one of the world’s top tourist destinations — Europe — upending the region’s cherished summer holidays and leaving its multibillion-dollar tourism industry struggling to survive. The European Union hopes to at least boost tourism within the bloc, as another mark of EU unity. But as Lisa Bryant reports for VOA from Paris, translating that goal into reality won’t be so easy.Camera: Lisa Bryant 
 
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As much of Europe remains under a strict lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, Sweden has stood out in taking a very different approach.  The government has refused to impose strict new lockdown laws, and its people have been allowed to work and travel.    In the early days of the pandemic, it seemed that Sweden may have gotten things right, as the outbreak tore through Italy, Spain, France and Britain. However, infection rates are increasing rapidly, and there have been close to 4,000 deaths, prompting growing nervousness in the country. Unlike other cities across Europe, the streets of Stockholm have remained busy, as shops, cafés, restaurants and nightclubs have stayed open, along with primary schools and most services such hairdressing.  The government has asked citizens to take individual responsibility for social distancing, while people over 70 and anyone feeling ill are asked to stay home.  State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency of Sweden speaks during a news conference on a daily update on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation, in Stockholm, Sweden, May 15, 2020.The theory behind Sweden’s approach is sustainability, says the government’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who has become something of a popular cult figure among many Swedes through his numerous television appearances.   “I think the Swedish strategy has proven to be sustainable,” he said. “I mean, we get figures now that people are actually increasing their adherence to our advice, not decreasing. It is very difficult to stop having very strict measures. I mean, that’s the signals we get from all of these countries. It’s very difficult to stop a lockdown.”  Opinion is divided on whether Sweden’s unusual approach is working. Scott Rosenstein, director of the global health program at the Eurasia Group, said the trajectory of deaths and infections suggests the government has made mistakes.  “Ultimately, the death toll in Sweden right now is the highest per capita in Europe as of this week. And the experience of their neighbors hasn’t been as severe. So, I think if you look at Denmark, which has taken a very different approach — a very strong lockdown early — they really got out in front of their outbreak. They have been testing significantly more than Sweden. They’ve been able to relieve a lot of their social distancing quicker,” Rosenstein told VOA.  Paramedics clean and disinfect an ambulance after dropping a patient at the Intensive Care Unit at Danderyd Hospital near Stockholm on May 13, 2020, during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.Almost half of Sweden’s deaths have occurred in care homes. Outside Sweden’s Parliament, victims’ relatives have made a memorial to loved ones who they say died “without help.” “Why didn’t they protect the citizens by closing the borders, by protecting the people against the epidemic?” asked Mirrey Gourie, who set up the memorial after losing her father to COVID-19. Ultimately, it is too early to tell who has gotten it right, argues Dr. Peter Drobac, a global health analyst at Britain’s Oxford University.  “We’re relying on some historical experience, some modeling. But to an extent, all countries are kind of experimenting with different methods of safely opening up. And I think we have to be very careful in trying to learn from one another.”   The economic damage in Sweden could be less severe than in other European states, but the human toll may far exceed neighboring countries. The debate over such trade-offs will likely intensify as the pandemic continues to take lives. 
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President Donald Trump said Thursday he is pulling the United States out of the 18-year-old international Open Skies treaty allowing surveillance flights over other countries because Russia has been violating it. The U.S. began notifying the other 33 signatories to the accord that it was giving the required six months’ notice to leave. President Donald Trump listens during a meeting in the State Dining Room of the White House, May 18, 2020, in Washington.At the White House, Trump accused Moscow of ignoring terms of the treaty. Consequently, Trump told reporters, “We’re not going to adhere to it either,” although he held out hope that some new agreement might be reached. The treaty has allowed the 34 countries to conduct surveillance flights over each other’s territory to look at military installations, an effort aimed at international peacekeeping. But the U.S. contends that Moscow has been violating the treaty by blocking it from conducting flights over the Baltic Sea city of Kaliningrad and Russia’s southern border near Georgia, both of which are permitted by the agreement. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March that Russia has been “cheating for many years.” Russia has denied violating the treaty. The Open Skies withdrawal is Trump’s latest move during his three-and-a-half-year presidency to remove the U.S. from international agreements enacted by previous presidents that he considers unfair to American interests.  Last year, Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, and earlier had abandoned the international Paris climate control accord, a trade treaty with Pacific Rim nations and a deal with Iran to restrain its development of nuclear weapons. The concept of the Open Skies treaty was first advanced in the decade after the end of World War Two by President Dwight Eisenhower. The Soviet Union balked at the idea at the time, but the U.S. again pushed for a pact in 1989 under President George H.W. Bush. It was finally adopted by the required 20 countries in January 2002. 
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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Thursday that a small-scale antibody surveillance study has shown that about 17% of people in London and 5% in the rest of the country have had COVID-19.Speaking at his usual remote COVID-19 news briefing in London, Hancock said the study came out of Britain’s government-funded effort to develop antibody tests, which he said were not reliable enough for clinical use. He said that for the public at large to know whether they have had the coronavirus, they needed antibody tests at a larger scale.To that end, Hancock announced that Britain had signed contracts with pharmaceutical company Roche and Abbott to supply more than 10 million antibody tests. He said they would begin rolling out the tests in phases beginning next week, starting with health workers, and then patients.Hancock also reported a 14% decrease in COVID-19 patients being treated in hospitals since last week. He said that over 3 million people had been tested for the virus, of which 250,908 tested positive.The COVID-19 death toll in Britain stands at 36,042, a rise of 338 since Wednesday.  
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President Donald Trump said Thursday that Russian violations make it untenable for the U.S. to stay in a treaty that permits 30-plus nations to conduct observation flights over each other’s territory, but he hinted it’s possible the U.S. will reconsider the decision.The Open Skies Treaty that governs the unarmed overflights was initially set up to promote trust and avert conflict between the U.S. and Russia. The Trump administration informed other members of the treaty that it will pull out in six months because Russia is violating the pact and imagery collected during the flights can be obtained quickly at less cost from U.S. or commercial satellites.  “Russia didn’t adhere to the treaty. So until they adhere, we will pull out, but there’s a very good chance we’ll make a new agreement or do something to put that agreement back together,” Trump told reporters at the White House before leaving for Michigan.  “So I think what’s going to happen is we’re going to pull out and they (the Russians) are going to come back and want to make a deal,” Trump said. He added: “I think something very positive will work.”The U.S. announcement that it plans to leave the treaty is expected to strain relations with Moscow and upset some members of Congress and European allies, which benefit from the imagery collected by Open Skies flights conducted by the U.S.  In Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko criticized the U.S. decision.  “Our position is absolutely clear and is invariable: The withdrawal of the US from this treaty will come as yet another blow to the system of military security in Europe, which is already weakened by the previous moves by the administration,” Grushko told state news agency Tass.  Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien said the president has made clear that the United States will not remain a party to international agreements being violated by the other parties and are no longer in America’s interests. He said Russian violations prompted Trump last year to pull out of the 1987 nuclear arms treaty with Russia.  That treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banned production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles).  Trump’s decision to exit the Open Skies Treaty also raises questions about his commitment to extending or renegotiating the New START treaty, which expires early next year. New START, the only remaining treaty constraining the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, imposes limits on the number of U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads and launchers. Russia has offered to extend the treaty, but Trump is holding out in hopes of negotiating a three-way agreement with the U.S. and China.”We look forward to negotiating with both Russia and China on a new arms control framework that moves beyond the Cold War constructs of the past and helps keep the entire world safe.,” O’Brien said in a statement.  President Dwight Eisenhower first proposed the United States and the former Soviet Union allow aerial reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory in July 1955. At first, Moscow rejected the idea, but President George H.W. Bush revived it in May 1989, and the treaty entered into force in January 2002. Thirty-four nations have signed it; Kyrgyzstan has signed but not ratified it.  More than 1,500 flights have been conducted under the treaty, aimed at fostering transparency about military activity and helping monitor arms control and other agreements. Each nation in the treaty agrees to make all its territory available for surveillance flights and share all the imagery collected, yet Russia has restricted flights over certain areas.  Alexandra Bell, a former State Department official and currently the senior policy director at the nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said withdrawal from Open Skies will rub allies the wrong way.”I absolutely cannot see a single upside to abandoning this treaty against the advice and wishes of our allies, other than for the people who never liked this treaty and don’t like the idea of the transparency and openness the treaty provides,” Bell said.  The U.S. has been working on a proposal to share with partners and allies imagery the U.S. would have shared from its Open Skies flights, said senior administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to explain Trump’s decision.  Last month, top Democrats on the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees in the House and the Senate wrote to Trump accusing the president of “ramming” a withdrawal from the treaty as the world grapples with COVID-19. They said it would undermine U.S. alliances with European allies who rely on the treaty to keep Russia accountable for its military activities in the region.  This month, 16 former senior European military and defense officials signed a statement supporting the treaty, saying a U.S. withdrawal would be a blow to global security and further undermine the international arms control agreements.  If the U.S. and Russia exit, all U.S. and Russian territory would be off limits to the overflights. That prompts arms control experts like Steve Pifer at the Brookings Institution to ask “What would be the point?'” On the other hand, he said, Moscow could opt to stay in the treaty, which would at least allow it to continue overflights of American facilities in Europe.  Senior administration officials said Russian violations include restricting flights over Moscow and Chechnya and near Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian restrictions also make it difficult to conduct observation in the Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland that is home to Russia’s Baltic fleet, they said.Russia uses illegal overflight restrictions along the Georgian border in support of its propaganda narrative that the Russian-occupied enclaves of Georgia are independent countries.  
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