EU states recommend loosening of Covid travel restrictions for Americans

Member states of the European Union (EU) decided on Wednesday to begin loosening restrictions for travelers from the United States.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, travel restrictions in the European Union have stopped Americans – along with many other nationalities – from entering EU member states unless engaged in essential travel.

As of Wednesday, however, EU member states agreed to begin loosening the restrictions for those coming from the United States – allowing travel again in the near future.

Taiwan, Serbia, Lebanon, Albania, and Macedonia were also added to the list.

According to AP, the recommendation to begin loosening restrictions “is non-binding, and national governments have authority to require test results or vaccination records and to set other entry conditions.” The EU is currently developing a vaccine passport system which would make pandemic travel between member states easier.

Other non-EU countries were already added to the list of nations “for which member states should gradually lift restrictions on non-essential travel” on June 3. Those countries included Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Rwanda.

China was also added to the list, but “subject to confirmation of reciprocity,” as were the administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao – however the reciprocity clause for the latter two has since been rescinded.

The United States has been hit hardest by Covid-19, with nearly 33.5 million cases and over 600,000 deaths – significantly more than the second-most affected country in the world, India, which has 29.6 million cases and 379,500 deaths.

Despite this, the United States has also become one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, administering over 300 million vaccine doses, second only to mainland China’s 923.9 million doses.

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