EU Eyes Stopping Nonessential Travel From US

The European Union is likely to decide Monday (August 30) whether to recommend that member states block nonessential visits from the United States.

Travel from the United States has worried E.U. leaders for about a month as the infection rate in the U.S. has risen to a level higher than that across Europe.

In the United States, the daily new cases rate is 47 per 100,000 people, according to the tracker maintained by the New York Times. In France, the daily rate is 28 per 100,000 people. In Germany it’s 11 per 100,000 and in Spain it’s 19 per 100,000.

A COVID-19 tracker run by Johns Hopkins University puts the vaccination rate for the entire United States 53 percent. Johns Hopkins vaccination rates for European countries include: France, 58 percent; Germany, 60 percent; Italy, 60 percent; and Spain, 69 percent.

According to the Wall Street Journal, up for consideration Monday is whether authorities in Brussels will add the U.S. to a list of countries from which member states are advised to discourage travel. The list is updated every fortnight.

Member states are not required to follow the advice from EU leaders, but the Journal story states that leaders across Europe will be hard-pressed to allow continued nonessential travel from the United States as long as the United States continues to prohibit nonessential travel from Europe.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said recently that the difference in rules would not be allowed to “drag on for weeks,” the Journal reported.

The Journal reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel also has expressed concern about the situation to members of the Biden administration, but that leaders of countries in Europe did not want to halt tourism from the U.S. during the busy summer travel season.

The United Kingdom dropped COVID-19 restrictions for fully vaccinated travelers from the United States and Europe in late June.

Read more: The EU Unveils Its COVID Travel Passport