On Tuesday, 20 October, a diplomatic source confirmed a news story reported by Bloomberg by indicating that Member States’ permanent representatives (Coreper) will be asked to remove three countries from the list of non-EU countries whose nationals may enter the EU for non-essential travel and to add one country on Wednesday, 21 October.
According to the proposal made by the German Presidency of the Council of the EU, these three countries are Tunisia, Georgia, and Canada, and the country to be added is Singapore.
The last formal update of the list took place in August and has since been confirmed regularly without modification (see EUROPE 12551/14).
This time, the situation in these three countries justifies their residents no longer being allowed to enter the EU for leisure travel, given that the situation in Member States is also worse.
For Singapore, the logic is that it reports a much better epidemiological situation than Member States. The question will then arise as to the measures that travellers from Singapore who have visited the EU will have to apply when they return home.
The current list is comprised of 11 countries: Tunisia, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Rwanda, South Korea, Uruguay, and China (subject to reciprocity). It would thus be reduced to nine.
Coreper will hold a debate early Wednesday afternoon and will be asked to adopt a new decision.
Adopted at the end of June, the very first EU list was comprised of 15 non-EU countries (see EUROPE 12517/8). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)