The European Union agreed on a proposal that would relax many of the COVID-19 travel restrictions for international travelers. The proposal paves the way for vaccinated tourists from many countries to travel freely amongst the 27-nation bloc.
The proposal will also update the guidelines for "safe countries" based on how well they have handled the coronavirus pandemic. Under the new guidelines, unvaccinated travelers will be able to skip a mandatory quarantine if they are traveling from a country with a 14-day new-case rate of less than 75 per 100,000 people.
Currently, only seven countries, including Israel, Australia, and Singapore, are considered safe countries under the current guidelines, which require a 14-day new-case rate of less than 25 per 100,000 people.
Officials plan to release the updated list of safe countries in the coming weeks. They have not provided an exact date when the borders will reopen because the proposal must be formally approved by individual counties, though they expect it to be sometime in early June.
Individual countries will still be able to set their own rules, and the proposal includes an "emergency brake" that will allow officials to restrict travel if the pandemic worsens.
The U.S. Travel Association urged the United States to craft similar rules to help jump-start international travel.
"The U.S. has been a leader in many aspects of managing the pandemic but is behind our global competitors in pursuing an international economic reopening," U.S. Travel Association CEO Roger Dow said, according to ABC News. "The millions of travel-related U.S. jobs that were lost to the pandemic won't come back on the strength of domestic travel alone, so identifying the path to restarting international visitation is essential to an overall economic recovery."
Photo: Getty Images