South Koreans can travel Europe again from July 1

South Koreans can travel Europe again from July 1. News outlets including BBC reported Monday (local time) that the European Union allowed entry of citizens from 14 countries including Korea.

Countries allowed into the European Union are South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, Algeria, Georgia, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and more. According to BBC, these countries had less COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the previous two weeks, which is why the EU decided that it was safe to allow entry.

The U.S., Brazil, Russia and others which are still recording 6,000 to 30,000 new cases per day were excluded from the list. China has less new cases than the EU average, but was excluded as the Chinese government is restricting entry of EU citizens.

The EU announced that it would add China to the list if the Chinese government offers a reciprocal travel deal for citizens of EU countries. It said the U.S. could be added to the list as it plans to renew the list once in two weeks. Whether to allow entry of U.K. citizens is to be determined in the Brexit negotiations.

The EU banned non-essential entry of citizens from a third country after sealing off borders between member countries when the virus rapidly spread. But the EU commission has been selecting countries to lift the travel restriction since June 10 as the spread of the virus slowed down.


Youn-Jong Kim zozo@donga.com