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14 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 7 JULY 2021 EUROPE This article is part of a content series called Ewropej. This is a multi-newsroom initiative part-funded by the European Parliament to bring the work of the EP closer to the citizens of Malta and keep them informed about matters that affect their daily lives. These articles reflect only the authors' view. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. HOSTING the Euro 2020 sem- ifinals and final at Wembley Stadium in London while cases of the COVID-19 Delta vari- ant are soaring across the UK is a "recipe for disaster", Pascal Canfin, chair of the European Parliament's environment com- mittee, said in a letter addressed to Parliament President David Sassoli, asking him to lobby EU presidents Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel to intervene. "The decision of Boris John- son to allow 60,000 spectators to Wembley for the semi-finals and the final of the Euro 2020 is irresponsible while the variant Delta threatens our way out of the crisis. Europe must demand that matches take place with a gauge or on the continent," Canfin said. The letter pointed to analysis which suggested the Delta vari- ant was 40-60% more transmis- sible than the Alpha variant, and that the UK was report- ing around 20,000 cases, a ten times increase from early May. It also pointed to a recent outbreak of cases linked to the Finland-Russia game held in St Petersburg, which represented "half of the new contamina- tions of Finland." "We demand therefore that the UEFA reconsiders its de- cision to organise the Euro 2020's semi-finals and final at the Wembley Stadium, or at least, that the UEFA and the UK authorities reassess health and safety measures and the crowd capacity decision, as stricter measures are the only alternatives available to guar- antee the health and safety of football fans," Canfin wrote on behalf of the European Parlia- ment's Environment Commit- tee (ENVI), which he chairs. Echoing Canfin's letter, Ger- man Interior Minister Horst Seehofer called European soccer's governing body UE- FA "utterly irresponsible" on Thursday for going ahead with the plans. "I cannot explain why UEFA is not being sensible …I suspect it is due to commercialism," he added. At matches in Munich, he noted, only 14,500 fans were al- lowed in and all were required to wear masks, keep their dis- tance and upload a negative COVID-19 test into an app. UEFA has previously ruled out in a statement changing the location or capacity limits of any of the remaining match- es, but stressed that mitigation measures of host venues "are fully aligned with the regula- tions set out by the competent local public health authorities". "The final decisions with re- gards to the number of fans at- tending matches and the entry requirements to any of the host countries and host stadiums fall under the responsibility of the competent local authori- ties, and UEFA strictly follows any such measures," UEFA said. Meanwhile, the UK govern- ment has criticised relaxed quarantine rules for UEFA VIPs from the participating teams and the World Health Organi- zation (WHO) has warned that fans mixing in the various Eu- ropean host cities has had an impact on the steady decline of COVID-19 infections across Europe. EU politicians demand Wembley be stripped of Euro 2020 final