EU removes Israel from 'safe travel' list 

The European Union yesterday called on its member states to reimpose travel restrictions on tourists coming from Israel following recent reports of high coronavirus infection rates.

“Nonessential travel to the EU from countries or entities not listed is subject to temporary travel restriction,” the council said in a statement.

The statement added that the recommendation might not affect Israelis who had received a vaccination. “This is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on nonessential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travelers,” the EU added.

EU countries have not been following a unified policy for tourism since the outbreak of the pandemic, and their governments have the authority to decide on whether to keep their borders open to Israeli tourists. Cyprus and Greece recently said they would allow fully-vaccinated Israelis to enter their territories.

READ: Israel records highest daily covid death rate since February

The EU’s decision was also reported to have included the United States, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.

The council updates the safe travel list based on a criteria related to coronavirus infection levels. The criterion for inclusion on the EU list is that the country does not witness more than 75 new infection cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days. The list gets reviewed on a fortnightly basis.