The EU today eased its restrictions for people travelling into the bloc from a number of countries, in its first major loosening of its travel ban list since July 2020.
After a review — which was postponed for two weeks — under its recommendation on the gradual lifting of its restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU to combat the spread of Covid-19, the European Council has updated the list of countries and territories for which travel restrictions should be lifted. From today, it recommends that member states should gradually start to ease restrictions so that non-essential travellers from a list of countries now updated to include the US, Japan, Israel, Taiwan, North Macedonia and Albania, can now enter the EU bloc. The list also includes China, subject to reciprocation. The list will continue to be reviewed every two weeks.
The European Commission first recommended "temporary restriction" on all non-essential travel from third countries into the EU for one month on 16 March 2020. That restriction has remained in place since, with some easing in summer 2020 before it was tightened again later in the year.
The continued gradual easing of pandemic travel restrictions across Europe will give some support to a recovery in road fuel and jet fuel demand. German airline Lufthansa said this week that it expects to reach 55pc of pre-pandemic passenger numbers by August, up from 30pc of June 2019 passenger levels this month. Data from Frankfurt and Vienna airports indicate that demand is gently rising. Road fuel demand is recovering too — French gasoline demand was up by 11pc on the month at 184,000 b/d in May after the lifting of internal travel restrictions, according to French oil products industry association UFIP, but was still down by 5.5pc on two years ago.
