Athens Airport – Photo By Leonid Mamchenkov
(BRUSSELS) – The Commission proposed Monday an easing of current restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU to take into account progress of vaccination campaigns and the worldwide epidemiological situation.
A temporary restriction on non-essential travel to the EU is currently in place from many non-EU countries. The Commission is proposing to allow entry to the EU for non-essential reasons not only for all persons coming from countries with a good epidemiological situation but also all people who have received the last recommended dose of an EU-authorised vaccine. This could be extended to vaccines having completed the WHO emergency use listing process.
In addition, the Commission proposes to raise, in line with the evolution of the epidemiological situation in the EU, the threshold related to the number of new COVID-19 cases used to determine a list of countries from which all travel should be permitted. The EU executive says this should allow the Council to expand this list.
At the same time, it warns of the need for the continued vigilance over the emergence of coronavirus variants of concern. As counter-balance, the Commission is proposing a new ’emergency brake’ mechanism, to be coordinated at EU level and which would limit the risk of such variants entering the EU. This will allow Member States to act quickly and temporarily limit to a strict minimum all travel from affected countries for the time needed to put in place appropriate sanitary measures.
The EU Council now has to consider the proposal, with a first discussion scheduled for 4 May, followed by discussion at the meeting of EU Ambassadors (Coreper) on 5 May.
Once the proposal is adopted by the Council, it will be for Member States to implement the measures set out in the recommendation. The Council should review the list of non-EU countries exempted from the travel restriction in light of the updated criteria and continue doing so every 2 weeks.
