Citizens of Albania, Macedonia and the North and Serbia can now travel to the European Union for non-essential travel very quickly. From today, June 18, member states will lift restrictions on travel of Albanian citizens.
This is thanks to the official decision taken today by the Council of the European Union to lift temporary restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries to the European Union.
The Council updated the list of third countries, entities and special administrative regions and territorial authorities for which restrictions on non-essential travel should be removed. As set out in the Council Recommendation, this list will continue to be reviewed every two weeks and, as appropriate, updated.
Based on the criteria and conditions set out in the Recommendation, from 18 June 2021 Member States should gradually lift restrictions on non-essential travel abroad for residents of the following third countries:
Albania
Australia
Israeli
Japan
Lebanon
New Zeland
Republic of Northern Macedonia
Rwanda
Serbia
Singapore
South Korea
Thailand
United States
China, subject to confirmation of reciprocity
Travel restrictions should also be phased out for China’s separate administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. The reciprocity condition for these particular administrative regions has been removed.
Under the category of entities and territorial authorities not recognized as states by at least one Member State, travel restrictions for Taiwan should also be phased out.
Residents of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican should be considered EU residents for the purposes of this recommendation.
The criteria for determining the third countries for which the current travel restriction should be lifted were updated on 20 May 2021. They cover the epidemiological situation and the overall response to COVID-19, as well as the reliability of the information and data sources available. Reciprocity should also be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Schengen countries (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) also participate in this recommendation./abcnews.al
