SINGAPORE, 24 February 2022: The World Travel & Tourism Council welcomes the European Council’s recommendations to ease travel restrictions on 1 March six weeks ahead of the Easter break in April.
“WTTC welcomes the sensible decision by the EU to drop travel restrictions before Easter, said WTTC president and CEO Julia Simpson. “The patchwork of rules and regulations did nothing to prevent the spread of Covid but did cause immense damage to the economy of Europe, causing the loss of jobs and businesses. Now is time to rebuild Travel & Tourism and connect Europe to the world.”
WTTC was responding to the more recent European Council recommendation issued on 22 February. The Council’s Covid-19 update said member states should allow non-essential travel for persons vaccinated with an EU or WHO-approved vaccine, recovered persons and all persons travelling from a country on the EU list.
It includes persons who have recovered from COVID-19 within 180 days before travel to the EU. For some of these travellers, additional measures such as PCR testing before travel could apply. The new recommendation will start to apply on 1 March 2022.
Countries on the EU list
For restrictions to be lifted for all travellers from a given third country under the new rules, the number of Covid-19 cases per 100 000 inhabitants over the last 14 days is raised from 75 to 100. The weekly testing rate per 100 000 inhabitants is also increased from 300 to 600.
