The European Union has recommended that EU member states lift non-essential travel restrictions for 10 new countries and Canada is one of them, bringing the list to 23 countries.
That means Canadians could be allowed to travel to Europe — just for the fun of it — sooner. But the final decision is left up to each individual member state and the EU's recommendations are not legally binding.
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The EU Council already permits non-essential travellers who are fully vaccinated with an EU-approved vaccine to enter its member states. But this list focuses on travellers from specific countries, rather than vaccination status.
According to EU criteria for adding countries to its "lifted travel restrictions" list, the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over the last 14 days should not be more than 75.
Over the last two weeks, the rate of cases per 100,000 people has reached 24 in Canada, according to government data.
Countries' vaccination progress is also be taken into account, as well as whether countries are making efforts to detect variants of concern, like the Delta variant strain.Â
All travellers to the EU from a country on the list should have tested negative for COVID-19 in a PCR test taken 72 hours earlier or sooner.Â
Member states are able to require self-isolation, quarantine and contact tracing for up to 14 days as well as further COVID-19 testing for the same period.
