EU countries refuse to lift travel ban on Southern African countries

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Even though the Omicron variant has already been circulating within the European Union, the Member States are still unwilling to drop the travel ban that was imposed against southern African countries in late November.

Talking about the matter, the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, told that Brussels is urging the Member States to lift the travel ban on southern African states as the measures have proven to be inefficient.


However, the EU nations still seem reluctant about making such a decision, even though the Commission made such a request during a joint meeting with EU governments.

According to the same, Reynders sees the travel ban as an inefficient measure since the EU could use other restrictions, such a testing and mandatory quarantine requirement, to manage the arrivals from Omicron-affected countries.

The Tourism Business Council of South Africa has called for the resumption of travel between the EU and South Africa as the ban had already cost the sector substantial revenue losses.

Concerning the overall COVID-19 situation and the travel rules, Reynders told that the EU Commission also opposed the newly adopted rules by seven EU countries to require fully vaccinated EU travellers to provide a negative COVID-19 test result upon their entry, as they believe in free movement within the EU without having to follow additional rules.

The latest data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) shows that as of December 19, a total of 4,691 Omicron infection cases have been confirmed in the EU/EEA.

8 EU/EEA countries have confirmed Omicron cases until now. Of them, Norway (2,060), Denmark (726), France (346), Germany (249), Estonia (242), the Netherlands (151), and Ireland (143) have reported the highest infection rates.

Nonetheless, ECDC has disclosed that the majority of cases are now being acquired within the EU/EEA, suggesting that only a few of them may currently be linked to travel abroad.

Although cases reported initially were linked to travel, an increasing number of cases are now reported to be acquired within the EU/EEA.
Several EU/EEA countries reported cases without an epidemiological link to travel. This indicates that community-associated spread of the Omicron VOC is occurring in the EU/EEA, ECDC highlighted.

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