Germany eyes travel warning end for 29 European nations on June 15

Berlin (dpa) – The German government is prepared to lift travel warnings for 29 European countries starting on June 15, nearly three months after they were introduced to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Wednesday’s decision will boost hopes for a rebound in tourism-dependant European economies that have been battered by the outbreak and the severe lockdowns used to contain it.

The travel warnings – imposed for countries worldwide on March 17 – will be lifted for Germany’s 26 fellow EU member states, apart from Spain, where the authorities have imposed restrictions on visitors until June 21, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said after a cabinet meeting.

Britain and three non-EU members of the borderless Schengen zone – Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein – will also see the German warnings lifted, according to a document approved at a cabinet meeting in Berlin on Wednesday.

Like Spain, Norway – the fourth non-EU Schengen member – has restrictions on arrivals in place beyond June 15, so is not included.

Discussions with destination countries would continue in the next fortnight, and Germany would watch the infection rate in other countries carefully, Maas said.

“I cannot provide the travel advice in a concrete form for each country at the moment,” he said.

“Travel warnings are not the same as travel bans, and travel advice is not the same as invitations to travel,” he warned.

The document approved by the cabinet on Wednesday specifies that travel warnings could be reintroduced depending on the number of new infections in those countries.

The upper limit set by Germany is 50 new infections per 100,000 people, within a space of seven days. If countries are not deemed to have enough anti-coronavirus measures in place, then Berlin could introduce “protective measures” Maas said.

The idea was to avoid any repeat of operations earlier this year that saw the government bring some 240,000 German citizens back home on special evacuation flights.