The European Union recommended on Monday that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on American tourists because of skyrocketing coronavirus infection rates in the US.
The decision to remove the US and five other countries from a safe list of nations for nonessential travel reversed advice from June, when the bloc recommended lifting restrictions on US travelers before the summer tourism season.
The guidance is nonbinding, however. The EU has no unified COVID-19 tourism policy and national governments have the authority to decide whether they keep their borders open to US tourists.
Americans travelers should expect a hodgepodge of travel rules across the continent.
Possible restrictions could include quarantines, further testing requirements upon arrival or even a total ban on all non-essential travel from the US.
The New York Times reported that the restrictions would only apply to unvaccinated travelers.
The European Union on Monday recommended that its member states reinstate restrictions on tourists from the US because of rising coronavirus infection levels. This image from July 16, 2021, shows visitors enjoy the view from top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
More than 15 million Americans a year visited Europe before the coronavirus crisis, and new travel restrictions could cost Europe billions.
In early August, Germany added the US to its 'high-risk' area list, requiring unvaccinated travelers to quarantine or undergo testing.
The recommendation doesn’t apply to Britain, which formally left the EU at the beginning of the year and opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the US earlier this month.
The United States remains on Britain’s 'amber' travel list, meaning that fully vaccinated adults arriving from the US to the UK don’t have to self-isolate. A COVID-19 test is required three days before arrival in the UK and another test is needed two days after arriving.
The United States has yet to reopen its own borders to EU tourists, despite calls from the bloc for the Biden administration to lift its ban.
The bloc has been divided between those pushing for equal treatment and those more reliant on tourism and reluctant to restrict US travelers.
Adalbert Jahnz, the European Commission spokesperson for home affairs, said Monday that the EU’s executive arm remained in discussions with the US administration as both sides have so far failed to find a reciprocal approach.
In addition to the epidemiological criteria used to determine the countries for which restrictions should be lifted, the European Council said that 'reciprocity should also be taken into account on a case by case basis.'
The European Council updates the list based on criteria relating to coronavirus infection levels. It gets reviewed every two weeks.
Last week in the US new cases averaged over 152,000 a day
US coronavirus deaths have been over 1,200 a day for several days
The threshold for being on the EU list is having not more than 75 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days.
Last week in the US new cases averaged over 152,000 a day, making it more than 300 per 100,000 people, and turning the clock back to the end of January. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was around 85,000, a number not seen since early February.
US coronavirus deaths have been over 1,200 a day for several days, seven times higher than they were in early July.
More than 637,500 people have died of COVID in the US since the outbreak of the pandemic