BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th July, 2020) The Council of the European Union on Thursday removed Serbia and Montenegro from its list of countries for which coronavirus-related travel restrictions were considered to be safe to be lifted, which comes amid the spike in COVID-19 cases in the Balkan countries.
In late June, the EU published a list of 15 countries where the epidemiological situation was considered safe and recommended that the member states lift entry restrictions for them. Serbia and Montenegro were both included on the list, but the union said that recommendations would be updated every two weeks.
"Based on the criteria and conditions set out in the recommendation, as from 16 July member states should gradually lift the travel restrictions at the external borders for residents of the following third countries: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay, China, subject to confirmation of reciprocity," the EU institution said in an update.
Serbia and Montenegro were removed from the updated list.
The EU determines the safe list of countries based on the epidemiological situation, including the number of new cases per 100,000 people, and the COVID-19 response.
Both Serbia and Montenegro are seeing a surge in coronavirus cases in late June and early July. Serbia went from reporting less than 100 cases a day on average in mid-June to more than 300 in the past few days, while Montenegro's average has increased from less than 10 a day to more than 50 over the course of the past two weeks.
