Date Published: 29/06/2020
ARCHIVED - The EU will open its borders on 1st July but excludes the US, Brazil and Russia
ARCHIVED ARTICLE The EU will open its external borders on 1st July, but not everyone will be welcomed in with open arms.
On Tuesday morning a definitive list be published of the 15 countries from which it is considered to be “safe” to open borders and allow the movement of citizens following the conclusion of negotiations and the initiation of a written procedure through which all member states confirm their acceptance of the agreement.
Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, acknowledged on Monday that there have been disagreements within the European Union about exactly who should be allowed in, "some asked us to be more generous and others wanted us to be stricter," she said in an interview on Cadena Ser, but "Spain has been clear from the first moment that this is not a diplomatic exercise,"and our input has been based on "epidemiological" factors.
The U.S. is one of the countries that will definitely NOT to be on the list, the most affected in the world with more than 2.5 million infected and more than 125,000 dead.
When pushed on whether the decision to leave America off the list was for any reason other than Covid, the Minister said that the entire American continent was "in a phase of the pandemic, they have not reached the peak ", and also rhave closed their own borders.
Other no-no’s are Russia - more than 627,000 infected and 9,000 dead -, Brazil - three million infected and more than 57,000 deaths - and most Latin American countries, considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the global epicenter of the pandemic (accumulates 25% of cases globally) and where the contagion curve continues to be most decidedly upward. Countries like Cuba, Costa Rica, Nicaragua or Venezuela have also been left off the list.
There are also indications that most of the Balkan countries will also be excluded.
The list will be continually revised to gradually expand it to other countries that are controlling the epidemic, but also to reverse it if there is an increase in infections at any time.
At the moment the most likely countries to be included in the list are;
Australia, Algeria, Canada, South Korea, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Serbia, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay, Rwanda and China
China and Morocco will only be included providing the agreement is reciprocal. At the moment Morocco is not due to open its own borders until 10th July.
Last week, thresholds of 100 or 50 infections for every 100,000 inhabitants were considered, but, according to the minister, a much more restrictive criterion has finally been imposed that will prevent people from coming to the EU from countries where more new cases are registered than in European countries. In recent days, the contagion ratio in the EU has been 16 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The launch of this written procedure comes after a weekend of consultations between Member States, as their permanent ambassadors failed to reach an agreement last Friday. Time is short because July 1st is the day set for the EU to reopen its external borders, although it will do so in a very limited way, only to 15 countries at the moment, according to the base agreement on which the Croatian Presidency now seeks unanimity of the Member States.
The decision does not require a unanimous agreement, but Croatia wants it to be so. Other European governments, such as Spain are also seeking a unanimous accors, as if a country decided not to obey the communal accord, citizens of countries that are not allowed to enter could travel freely within the EU just by entering the EU via the port of a country that was outside of the deal, in other words, it would be impossible to stop someone from travelling freely from within the EU once the external borders have been opened in one country or another.