Pakistani citizens disallowed to enter EU as the continent gears to open up

NEW DELHI: Pakistan has not been included in the draft list of 54 countries that will benefit from the reopening of the European Union's external borders from July.

India was in the draft list amid high rate of recovery of Covid patients.

The countries that made it to the list are -- Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Australia, Bahamas, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Dominica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mauritius, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Serbia, South Korea, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zambia.


Citizens of Brazil, Qatar, the US and Russia will only be able to enter Europe at a later date once their cases subside. In March, when cases were rising in Europe, US President Donald Trump had banned most EU citizens from entering the United States in a bid to curb the outbreak there.

EU sources said that the bloc’s executive commission had proposed three criteria for allowing in passengers from third countries, including the epidemiological situation of that country. EU member states were considering using a country’s rate of infection per 100,000 people to decide whether to allow in passengers, but had not yet agreed at what threshold to set this criteria.

Earlier this month, the European Commission recommended that the bloc gradually reopen its borders to non-EU travellers from July.