The European Union Council has announced that the borders of the EU Member States will now be open to arrivals from Ukraine as the country has been added to the EU’s epidemiologically safe countries list.
At the same time, it has been revealed that stricter travel restrictions will be imposed against all arrivals from Rwanda and Thailand since the two countries are no longer part of the non-EU safe-countries list, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Such decisions to remove or include new countries on the EU’s safe-countries list are solely based on the COVID-19 situation prevailing in third countries and the vaccination rates. More precisely, a country is added to the EU’s list of epidemiologically safe countries if it has identified fewer than 75 Coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants during the last 14 days.
“Following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted. In particular, Rwanda and Thailand were removed from the list and Ukraine was added to the list,” the Council’s statement reads.
As such, based on the new conditions set on the Council’s recommendation, since July 15, the EU Member States should gradually lift travel restrictions for citizens of the following third countries:
Albania
Armenia
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brunei Darussalam
Canada
Israel
Japan
Lebanon
Montenegro
New Zealand
Qatar
Republic of Moldova
Republic of North Macedonia
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Singapore
South Korea
Ukraine
United States of America
China, subject to confirmation of reciprocity.
In addition, the Council reiterated that the travel restrictions should also be gradually lifted for China’s special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.
It was also highlighted that Schengen-associated countries – Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland – also take part in the recommendation to lift the restrictions for the above-mentioned third countries.
Consequently, this means that all travelers from one of the third countries mentioned above can enter the 27-nation bloc and the four Schengen-associated countries for travel purposes.
However, it should be noted that such a classification of countries does not restrain the EU Member States from imposing COVID-19 related requirements like testing or self-isolation on arrivals from third countries.
Previously, the German authorities decided to follow the EU’s recommendation and allow restriction-free entry to arrivals from 25 third countries.
A similar decision was also taken by the Swedish authorities, which permitted entry to 11 more third countries.
