The European Commission is preparing the European Union to welcome back foreign tourists this summer, particularly those who have been vaccinated, and proposed, on Monday 3 May, to revise the recommendation establishing a list of third countries whose residents may travel to the EU for non-essential reasons.
This list of countries, first adopted in June 2020 by the Member States (see EUROPE 12517/8), currently includes seven third countries whose residents can come without particular restrictions (Australia, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and China subject to reciprocity). The Commission’s idea is therefore to extend it starting in June to vaccinated travellers from all over the world or from areas where the epidemiological situation has improved.
The Commission has not only opened the door to the EU to all foreign tourists who have been vaccinated “at least 14 days before their arrival in the EU”, either with a vaccine recognised by the European Medicines Agency or with a vaccine included in the World Health Organization’s emergency list, but it has also proposed to broaden the criteria for the recommendation to take better account of the epidemiological situation in third countries, which is generally improving and which should allow tourists from these areas to return to the EU even without vaccination.
In this amended text, the Commission has relaxed the criteria for observing the incidence rate of Covid-19 cases over the last two weeks, raising it from 25 to 100. The average incidence rate in the EU is currently 420, so the Commission believes that it is not too risky to relax this criterion slightly for third countries.
With these new parameters, the experts and national ambassadors of the EU Member States, who will have a first discussion on the proposal on 4 and 5 May respectively, should therefore, in theory, extend the current list to more countries. This perspective has already been given to the United States by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in an interview with the New York Times (see EUROPE 12706/15).
Emergency brake
The proposed revision of the recommendation, which the Commission hopes to have adopted “by the end of May”, said an EU source, also provides for an ‘emergency brake’ in the event of a sudden deterioration in the situation, particularly if a variant develops more dangerously. Member States will therefore have to “adopt, in a coordinated manner, urgent and time-limited measures to respond rapidly to the emergence of a specifically investigated variant in a given third country, and in particular when it has been designated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as a variant of interest”, the proposal says.
This emergency mechanism is intended to allow “appropriate measures, including entry restrictions, to be taken to prevent its import and spread in the EU and EU+ area”.
However, the proposed recommendation will not be a gateway to the EU, as travellers from third countries, as well as travellers from the EU travelling within the bloc, will have to comply with existing national measures, although the Commission believes that such quarantine measures or restrictions will disappear in the near future, as vaccination progresses.
Essential travellers (health workers, diplomats, long-term residents in the EU, etc.) will continue to be exempt from specific conditions for entry into the EU, although some member countries chose in February to tighten entry conditions, including for essential workers/travellers, for example by also imposing tests (see EUROPE 12648/2).
Equivalence of third country ‘certificates’ with those of the EU
This new proposal for a list of third countries naturally complements the work launched at the end of March on the ‘Digital Green Certificate’, which is also intended to prepare for the tourist season in the EU by gradually restoring free movement. The first interinstitutional trilogue (negotiation meeting) on this draft regulation was scheduled for late on 3 May.
The preparation of the ‘European Digital Green Certificate’ will, however, raise some practical issues with travellers from third countries such as the United States, which does not have a health certificate system. However, this should not be insurmountable, said a source.
The Commission, for its part, will be given the capacity to take equivalence decisions to recognise the certificates of travellers from third countries. They will also be able to apply for a ‘European Digital Green Certificate’.
On Monday, the Commission invited Member States to work on setting up a portal for travellers to request recognition of a vaccination certificate issued by a third country or to request a European Digital Green Certificate.
Link to the recommendation: https://bit.ly/2QGL3HH (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)