Many EU countries are opening their borders selectively, based on expert recommendations
As reported by "Russkaya Germaniya", the final list of countries whose citizens will be allowed entry in the first phase will be created by June 30. For now, it concerns six Western Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Their epidemiological situation is similar to or even better than Europe's.
In the future, borders for specific countries will be opened based on their epidemiological situation. It is important that it is no worse than in the EU as a whole, and that the European Commission does not doubt the data provided.
The EU will assess each country on how well sanitary standards are observed at its airports, and whether the country could be used as a transit point for travel from other countries that do not meet the European Commission's conditions. Another criterion is reciprocity. The EU will only admit citizens of countries that are themselves ready to let Europeans in.
At the same time, the European Commission notes that EU states may require all arrivals to observe self-isolation.
There is no talk yet of opening borders between the EU and Russia. Russia ranks third in the world in the current number of coronavirus patients (confirmed cases minus recoveries) after the USA and Brazil. At the same time, Russia has lifted most quarantine restrictions despite a daily increase of 8-9 thousand patients. Moscow itself is in no hurry to open its borders. For now, there is only talk of lifting restrictions on travel to a number of CIS countries – Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc.
In the USA, more than a million people are still ill. Lifting restrictions with this country would be extremely dangerous for Europe.
To allow travelers to track which countries are on the list, the European Commission has promised to create a special website. This week, the portal reopen.europa.eu was already launched, where you can check travel conditions within the EU. It is possible that information on the opening of external borders will be published there as well.
On June 15, EU member states were supposed to lift internal border controls within the Schengen area – in particular, Germany opened its borders to all EU citizens. However, a number of countries refused to do so and continued to open borders selectively, based on the recommendations of their own epidemiologists. In some places, a two-week quarantine for arrivals remains in place.
That is why, when planning a trip, the European Commission recommends first checking the current information on the rules of the destination country.