Europe is looking at easing travel restrictions on foreign tourists as early as next month, but the catch is, if they are fully vaccinated or come from a country with under control, officials said Monday.
The European Commission is recommending EU member states agree to restart the bloc’s vital tourist industry in time for the European summer after a wipe-out season last year when travel plummeted worldwide.
“Time to revive the EU tourism industry and for cross-border friendships to rekindle — safely,” commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tweeted.
The commission statement said vaccinated people arriving in the EU on “non-essential travel” would need to have received EU-approved jabs, currently those from BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Then there is an “emergency brake” allowing EU countries to halt arrivals from where a “variant of concern or interest is detected”, such as those spreading in Brazil, India and South Africa.
“Even vaccinated persons would be subject to the travel restrictions coming from these countries subject to this emergency brake,” said a commission spokesman, Adalbert Jahnz.
That brings the question to mind the whole essence of vaccination.
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