MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU removes Argentina, Canada and Australia from “safe countries” list

Argentines vaccinated with Sputnik V can no longer go to Europe

The European Union Monday removed Argentina, Canada, and Australia from its list of COVID-19 safe countries from where people could travel without sanitary restrictions.

“Following a review as part of the gradual lifting of temporary restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU, the Council updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted. In particular Argentina, Australia and Canada were eliminated from the list,” the EU said.

There are still four countries in the region on the list: Chile, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.

The European Council website also explained that “a Member State should not decide to lift the travel restriction of countries that are not on the list before it is decided in a coordinated manner.”

The measure is said to follow COVID-19 outbreaks in those three countries and therefore unvaccinated travelers will no longer be admitted into the EU. Before Monday, people without a full immunization plan were allowed in, provided they quarantined upon arrival. The option has been removed.

Spain was the first European country to follow the EU recommendations, as announced through the website of the Spanish embassy in Argentina. As of Monday, Argentines must meet one of the following requirements in order to enter Spain: vaccination certificate with at least one formula approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the World Health Organization Health (WHO); a negative Covid swab test or coronavirus discharge from the last 180 days.

The EU opened its border to tourists who are fully vaccinated with any of the drugs authorized by the EU or by the World Health Organization (WHO), but also maintains a list of “safe countries” from which people are allowed to travel. unimmunized or inoculated with formulas not approved by those agencies.

The EMA has so far authorized five vaccines against COVID-19: those from BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax. The WHO also approved for emergency use those of Sinopharm, Sinovac and Bharat.

People vaccinated in Argentina with the Russian-developed Sputnik V drug will no longer be eligible for travel.

The EU list of safe countries is now as follows: Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Kuwait, New Zealand, Peru, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and Uruguay.

China would also be on that list on condition of reciprocity.