The Ambassadors of the Member States to the European Union (COREPER) were still trying to finalise the criteria and modalities for drawing up a first list of non-Member States whose citizens will be allowed to return to the EU for leisure travel (see EUROPE 12504/1) on the evening of Friday 26 June.
They had not yet concluded the discussions by the time we went to press. The meeting had already been going on for 3 hours. It was to be used, among other things, to update the data on the table that will enable national authorities to reopen their borders to certain non-Member States.
The question also arose as to how to deal with travellers from the United States and China, many of whose tourists come to Europe every year.
On 25 June, at the request of the EU Council, the European Commission prepared a draft EU Council recommendation that would formalise the EU-27’s decision. It is this draft recommendation, which should be adopted by written procedure, that the Ambassadors were fine-tuning. A list of countries meeting the criteria was therefore to accompany it in the evening.
This draft recommendation (https://bit.ly/2ZeQxt8 ) reflects, at this point, the discussions held during the last six meetings on the subject. It thus addresses three main criteria: - a threshold close to or below 16 infections/100,000 inhabitants observed over the last 2 weeks; - the trend in new cases as of the day of the reopening of the external borders and whether this trend is stable or decreasing compared to the last 2 weeks; - the overall response to Covid-19 by these non-Member States, taking into account available information on aspects such as testing, monitoring, contact tracing, lockdowns, processing, and reporting mechanisms.
Where data on these aspects are not available, Member States may refer to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and to the method for calculating an average score provided for in those Regulations (a score above 50).
The Recommendation advises that citizens of non-Member States should not be discriminated against on the basis of nationality, with only residence being taken into account in deciding whether or not to authorise travel.
Member States will also need to have the capacity to rapidly reopen or, on the contrary, to rapidly close their external borders to residents of a country depending on the assessment of the health situation.
All Member States should, if possible, coordinate and not decide unilaterally to open their borders to a non-Member State if the other Member States have not decided to do so. EUROPE will continue to follow this story. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)