The 27 agree to reopen the EU border to tourists vaccinated in third countries
The Twenty-seven have agreed this Wednesday to reopen their foreign border to tourists vaccinated against the coronavirus in third countries that inject vaccines that also have the approval of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as is the case of the United States or the United Kingdom. .
The conditions for vaccinated travelers to enter the EU is that they have received the complete vaccination schedule (two doses in most vaccines on the market) at least fourteen days before their trip, according to the consensus of the States. member at an ambassador-level meeting in Brussels.
The agreement must still be formalized at the level of ministers, probably this Thursday at a planned meeting of those responsible for Trade, and will enter into force as of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Until the entry into force of the European Covid Certificate that the 27 finalize to reactivate tourism within the EU, this new condition for non-EU tourists can only be offered by member states that are already considering vaccination to relax restrictions on Europeans .
The capitals have wanted in this way to ensure that travelers from third countries will not enjoy privileged treatment with respect to the situation of Europeans, so the recommendation makes it clear that a Member State may only open its border to third parties if it is already taking into account the vaccines to lift quarantines or the requirement of PCR to Europeans.
In any case, border management is a matter for the exclusive competence of national governments, so what is agreed at the European level is a commitment to apply the same criteria in all 27, which does not prevent each country from can decide stricter criteria.
Thus, for example, the agreement states that in addition to the vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency, member states may also authorize the entry of non-EU tourists immunized with other sera authorized by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Another of the updates agreed by the capitals regarding the criteria to allow entry into the EU is the revision of the incidence rate that will be taken into account. Until now, member states have limited travel permission to countries whose incidence did not exceed 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, a threshold that is now relaxed to 75 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The EU countries will also reinforce the so-called “emergency brake” that would allow them to close the reopened border to a third country or apply other restrictions that limit travel in the event that contagions are triggered or a high incidence of new variants is detected. .
Apart from the commitment to Twenty-seven to reopen tourism to vaccinated non-EU citizens, the EU countries have a reduced list of countries to which they open their border because they consider that they do not pose a risk because their epidemiological situation is the same or better than in Europe .
The last revision was carried out on May 5 to include Israel in this list, which does not reach ten destinations, but which will probably be updated again at the end of this week, taking into account the new criteria agreed on Tuesday.
At the moment, the list is limited to routes with departure or arrival to Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and China, although in the latter case it is subject to the condition of reciprocity that for the moment Beijing is not complying.
europa press
19/05/2021 12:01:43
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