The European Union will remain closed to Russian citizens until at least mid-August, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday, citing a source in one of the EU member states’ delegations.
After three months of being closed to nonessential travel, the EU reopened its borders on July 1 to visitors from countries that were considered to have controlled their coronavirus outbreaks. The EU is set to announce its updated “white list” of permitted countries in the coming days.
«Russia will not be included in this list yet. Unfortunately, statistics say that it is too early,» TASS cited its source as saying.
Countries around the world are grappling with how to reopen to international travel after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered borders and slammed the global tourism industry.
Russia has not yet reopened its borders to all foreigners but is currently in talks with 30 countries on resuming international flights. Starting Aug. 1, Russia will resume flights with Britain, Turkey and Tanzania.
Officials have said that Russia would adhere to the principles of reciprocity in reopening its airspace, meaning that other countries would need to accept Russian citizens in order for Russia to accept theirs.
No travel is risk-free in pandemic, No10 warns, as Spain in talks over quarantine exemption for Canary and Balearic islands
Government decision to enforce 14-day quarantine on holidaymakers returning from Spain ‘announced straight away’, Downing Street says
Downing Street said its move to enforce a 14-day quarantine on holidaymakers returning from Spain was «announced straight away» after a decision was taken based on new data on case numbers.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said: «We got new data from the Spanish health ministry on Friday and that showed that new cases reported across the Thursday and Friday were 75 per cent higher than those reported on the previous two days.
«This pace of increase, together with the high seven-day case rate for Spain and the picture of increasing cases across most regions, represented a significant change.
«In response, Public Health England and the Joint Biosecurity Centre decided to undertake an urgent review and they updated ministers at a meeting on Saturday, and in light of that significant change ministers agreed urgent action was needed to protect the health of the UK public.
«The change to our policy was announced straight away.»
Boris Johnson was not on the call where the decision was made, but the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was, the spokesman added.
