Top EU official postpones wedding to avoid quarantine

BRUSSELS

The head of the European Council has postponed his wedding to avoid coronavirus containment measures.

Charles Michel, also a former Belgian premier, had his wedding planned for Saturday in Montmeyan, a village in southeastern France.

But he decided to postpone the ceremony since the region is classified as an "orange zone" by the Belgian Foreign Ministry, daily Le Soir reported.

A 14-day quarantine is recommended upon arrival from orange zones, and Michel could not fit this break into his busy schedule.

The couple has yet to set a new wedding date.

The epidemiological situation, however, is still far better at the planned venue than in Brussels.

The Belgian capital on Friday got a red classification on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s (ECDC) coronavirus map as the daily average of new infections passed the threshold of 120 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the past two weeks.

With an average of 70 new infections over 100,000 residents, the rest of Belgium also passed into the dark brown zone, representing a rate of 60-119.

The French village region is considered to be an orange zone by the ECDC, with only 20-59 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants.