15 Countries that will be Allowed to enter EU when Borders open

EU member states have agreed to a list of 15 countries that will be allowed to enter when external borders reopen.

An EU diplomatic source confirmed to Euronews that the draft list of 15 countries we reported on Monday has enough votes to pass and that an official announcement is expected later on Tuesday.

There are two lists, one for those that will be allowed to enter, and one for those who will not.

The list has already aroused controversy after sources revealed that the United States – the worst-affected country worldwide by COVID-19 with more than 2.4 million cases, is on the latter list.

Euronews has obtained, from EU diplomatic sources, the final list of the countries for which Europe’s borders will be open, and can confirm what we reported last Wednesday that Brazil, the US and Russia are indeed not on the approved list.

China, meanwhile, is on the list but only in the event that EU citizens are allowed to travel there as well.

On Thursday, we reported that a draft list of 54 countries had been discussed by EU members but the final list contains 15 states.

Ultimately, it will remain up to individual EU countries to make the call for their borders, meaning in some cases countries could reimpose internal borders.

No new date has been released for the border openings, so they may well stick to the original plan of July 1 (Wednesday).

The full list of countries whose nationals will be allowed to enter Europe according to the draft list is as follows:

Algeria

Australia

Canada

Georgia

Japan

Montenegro

Morocco

New Zealand

Rwanda

Serbia

South Korea

Thailand

Tunisia

Uruguay

China *subject to confirmation of reciprocity

Diplomatic sources also told Euronews last week that there was disagreement between nations on the criteria to use for this decision, with some maintaining that data about COVID rates is not reliable.

State had asked the ECDC, the EU agency for disease prevention, to come up with more details, the sources said, adding that the lists will be reviewed every two weeks.

When EU guidelines were released a few weeks ago officials said the list would take into account the infection rate in countries concerned.

The criteria are based on epidemiological data and on Thursday, the draft list had 54 nations that would be accepted. There are now 15 countries on the draft list for the border to be reopened.

This report was originally published by Euronews.