Israel added to European Union safe list for countries

Published on : Friday, May 7, 2021

Israel has been added to a European Union safe list for countries. The EU has said that travelers from Israel should be allowed to travel freely to Europe for tourism.

The European Union has imposed a blanket ban on unnecessary travel during the pandemic, with exceptions for few individual countries, including Australia, South Korea and Thailand. Among other exceptions to the EU travel ban are New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore and Israel.

Since late December, Israel has undertaken the most rapid per capita vaccination campaign globally. As of mid-April, almost five million people in Israel have received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is more than 70 percent of the population. Israel has been able to bring down its daily virus caseload from several thousand to a few dozen.

Britain has not yet been added to the list by EU member states. “Following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries for which travel restrictions should be lifted to add Israel,” said the European Council in a statement.
China would be added upon confirmation of reciprocity, the statement said.

The move came last week after the European Commission presented a proposal to further lift restrictions on nonessential travel from the listed countries due to improving epidemiological situation and vaccination campaigns.
The proposal suggested that countries should allow travelers into the EU if they have been vaccinated with serums approved for use in the region. Travel to the EU is currently extremely limited except for a handful of countries with low corona virus infection rates. However, with the approaching summer season, the European Commission is optimistic that the new recommendations will help expand the list.