The European Union Council will update its list of epidemiologically safe third-countries, by removing Serbia and Montenegro from it, due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in both Western Balkan countries.
EU diplomats told RFE/RL (which were not named by the medium) that the Council has decided not to add any new countries to the list, considering the epidemiological situation in these countries is not safe, instead only removing Serbia and Montenegro from the list.
The same sources confirmed that travel from the United States was not even part of the discussions, mainly due to the sharply increasing number of Coronavirus cases all across the US.
The European Union has decided to drop Serbia and Montenegro from its safe list of countries from which non-essential travel is allowed, and did not even discuss including the United States given its sharp rise in coronavirus cases, EU officials said.
“EU diplomats on Tuesday approved a proposal from Germany, now holding the rotating EU presidency, to exclude non-EU Serbia and Montenegro because of spreading infections,” these officials said.
Currently, the number of cases detected in Serbia is 19,021, with 709 dead, and 4,574 active cases, which are on the rise. Whereas in Montenegro there have been 1,287 cases detected so far, with 24 dead and 933 active
While there was a possibility of removing Algeria and Morocco from the list as well, as proposed by some EU countries, the majority were against, pointing out the number of infections in these countries remains low.
An updated list of the remaining 13 countries will be announced in the following days. The list remains a recommendation, and it depends on the EU and the Schengen Member States, to fully or partially apply it, or to reject implementing it as some countries as Hungary have done so far.
The 13 countries that remain on the EU list are as follows: Algeria, Australia, Canada, China, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.
