Thousands of binational couples separated by border closures and travel restrictions due to the coronavirus cry out online for governments to recognize their right to be together.
Spain this week joined the group of ten countries of the European Union which has established a process so that citizens and residents not legally married or registered in couples registries, demonstrate that they have a solid relationship, with true love and therefore, can meet after months of separation due to the pandemic.
The initiative responds to the clamor of couples in forums, Facebook y Twitter, and also to the recommendation made in early August by the European Commission. As soon as you know the news from Spain, forums like “Love is not Tourism” (love is not tourism), pages in Change.org, blogs, accounts Facebook and Twitter they exploded with joy: the Spanish can now join the party of the reunion with the loved one.
Since last March the epidemic of coronavirus will break out in EuropeThousands of foreigners in love with European citizens were trapped and unable to travel for the reunion.
The cases are varied; bride and groom who were preparing their wedding, students abroad who had to return home on flights that only admitted European citizens, couples who had planned to meet again after a separation for work, studies or family reasons.
All stranded thousands of kilometers away trying to keep the flame alive, while fighting against bureaucracy and restrictive regulations imposed as a precaution against the advance of the pandemic.
“The closing of borders has been – and still is – a reasonable measure, it is obvious that tourism had to be stopped”, recognize the page “Love is not tourism”, the epicenter of online protest, “but love is not tourism. It is not a mere summer vacation, it is a question of mental health and the future of thousands of people,” he says.
The estranged couples declare themselves willing to pay for their own tests or to carry out strict quarantines as long as they allow “a safe and non-bureaucratic reunion” with their transnational love.
Thanks to the decisions made by Spain and other EU countries, Lautaro (Spanish) and Lisa (Argentina) will be able to see each other again after too many months of anguish. “We have had a relationship for 5 years”, says Lisa in one of the forums where he explains that they planned to get married on March 20 in Argentina, but they suspended the wedding and spent the confinement together until, in May, Lautaro had to return to Spain to see his children.
She was left behind to resolve the visa procedures and was trapped, and now from the internet she cries out: “Please, help us make the Spanish Government understand that our love is real and essential, and that we deserve to meet.”
Kevin (American) is also desperate: he has been separated from his fiancee Lucía (Spanish), since last December, when she stayed in Madrid awaiting the interview with the United States embassy to get a visa that would allow them meet again.
“We are in a very tough situation and there is no solution for it. We have no idea when the visa application process will resume and we are very hopeless,” he says on the same website.
Belgian Mickael and his Mexican girlfriend Danka; the French Emma and her American fiancé Matt; Frenchman Dorian and his Argentine love Silvina are examples of the thousands of couples desperate to see each other again and trapped by the coronavirus, bureaucracy and borders.
Despite the timid victories on European borders, there are still many separated couples, warns the website the “Love is not tourism”, and list initiatives, forums and websites in different languages with the same objective: that the coronavirus does not defeat love.
(Information from Efe)
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