how to handle the coronavirus pandemic in a small town in two countries

Two municipalities, two churches, two police forces … and two packages of covid measures in a city shared by the Netherlands and Belgium. It’s like that Baarle, the city of “a thousand borders”, where managing the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic has not been an easy task.

Every morning Willem Van Hool commutes from his home in the eastern part of the city to his job as manager at the Baarle tourist office in central Sint Annaplein.

They are only 800 meters away, But during his routine walk, Van Hool changes countries up to eight times.

“It’s funny”, he told Efe, when asked about the strangeness of a city in which one can walk from Belgium to the Netherlands without realizing it more than twenty times, depending on the route.

Puzzle

With barely 8,000 inhabitants, Baarle is in fact called Baarle-Hertog (Belgian) or Baarle-Nassau (Dutch) and it is a real puzzle, since it is made up of 30 enclaves: 22 Belgian “islands” on Dutch territory, which in turn have eight Dutch enclaves in the interior, explains to Efe the mayor of the Belgian side, Frans De Bont.

Most of the borders between countries, the distribution of which comes from medieval battles between nobles, are marked with crossed lines on the sidewalk, city ​​symbol.

The crosses they can walk into a liquor store and walk out into a clothing store or enter private houses, such as the one on Loveren 2 (Belgian) or 19 (Dutch) street, at the door of which the flags of both countries hang and which has become the main tourist attraction in the city.

The line also runs even inside the Belgian town hall, of which something, says the mayor, “they are very proud”, to the point that it is marked in the conference room with LED lights.

The Belgian government demanded, from January to the end of April, that any person entering or leaving Belgian territory carry a declaration on their honor. specify the reason for the transfer, something “very boring” in Baarle.

“We had to bring the declaration to show that we lived here, that it was our territory and that it was necessary to be able to go to the Netherlands and Belgium, to stores there, ”says De Bont.

This difficult situation was experienced with the rest of the restrictive measures planned by the Belgian and Dutch authorities: different confinements and curfews, closures of establishments in one country and not in the other, etc.

As some establishments and buildings are shared by the two countries, such as the cultural center, the two municipalities finally decided to apply the strictest rules which, according to the Belgian mayor, it was “very uncomfortable”.

An example is the opening of the terraces, which in the Netherlands took place on April 28, while in Belgium they will only be able to do so from May 8.

A good relationship

Asked if the Belgians and the Dutch get along well, Willem, the director of the tourist office, laughs: “We have to do it … and we’re doing it pretty well. “

He says that the councilors of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog meet several times a year in the “GOB”, whose initials mean “Joint Body of Baarle”, for decide on common issues such as road construction.

“We have to come to a good agreement: who does the work, what is the cheapest land, etc.

Willem ensures that Belgians and Dutch live their nationality and their way of thinking in a “healthy” way.

There are many bi-national families in Baarle, like De Bont himself, married to a Dutch woman, which he says is a sign that “we are becoming a kind of European commune”.

Before saying goodbye, Willem proudly points out, “In the world there are 64 enclaves between countries and we have 30, so we are the enclave capital of the world.”

EFE Agency

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