The European Union has announced a decision by which it excluded Ukraine from the list of countries for which it is recommended to lift the restrictive measures imposed on unnecessary travel to the EU due to coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Following consideration under the recommendation to gradually remove temporary restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU, the Council has updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted. In particular, Singapore has been removed from the list and Ukraine,” according to the decision made public on Tuesday.
At the same time, each EU member state has the right to decide “to remove temporary restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travelers.”
As stipulated in the Council’s recommendation, this list will continue to be reviewed every two weeks and updated as appropriate.
The decision was made due to the growth of COVID-19 disease.
Ukraine was included in the list, which is reviewed every two weeks, on July 15.
The ambassadors of the European Union have excluded Ukraine from the list of countries for which it is recommended to lift the restrictive measures imposed on unnecessary travel to the EU due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This decision was made on Friday in Brussels, diplomatic sources reported to Interfax-Ukraine.
The official decision will be announced next week. It was adopted in connection with the increase in the incidence of coronavirus in Ukraine. The country was included in the list, which is reviewed every two weeks, on 15 July.
As previously reported, on 30 June 2020, the Council adopted a recommendation to gradually remove temporary restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU. This recommendation included an initial list of countries for which Member States can remove travel restrictions at external borders.
On May 20, the Council adopted a recommendation to amend in response to ongoing vaccination campaigns by introducing certain exemptions for vaccinated persons and relaxing the criteria for lifting restrictions for third countries. At the same time, the amendments take into account the possible risks associated with new options, establishing an emergency braking mechanism that allows to quickly respond to the emergence of a new option or deterioration of the situation in a third country.
The Council’s recommendation is not a legally binding document. The authorities of the member countries remain responsible for their implementation.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky discussed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the operation of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the liberalization of the visa travel.
“During a meeting at COP26, I thanked Justin Trudeau for Canada’s continued support of Ukraine, our European integration and NATO membership aspirations. The effect of the Free Trade Agreement was positively assessed. Simplification of trips to Canada for Ukrainian citizens was discussed,” Zelensky said on Twitter on Monday.
The Council of the European Union has added Argentina, Colombia, Namibia and Peru to the list of countries for which travel restrictions should be lifted. Ukraine also remained on the list of countries for whose residents the EU Council recommends gradually lifting travel restrictions at external borders.
“Following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted. In particular, Argentina, Colombia, Namibia and Peru were added to the list,” the EU Council said in a statement on the website on Friday.
As stipulated in the Council’s recommendation, this list will continue to be reviewed every two weeks and updated as appropriate.
During the New Year holidays, over 300,000 Ukrainians, who are subscribers of the mobile network operator Kyivstar traveled across Ukraine and abroad.
Thus, the top ten cities of Ukraine, where Kyivstar subscribers most actively traveled during the New Year holidays, included: Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, and Rivne. Tourist mobility peaked on December 28, 2020 and January 3, 2021.
The three most popular ski resorts in Ukraine among the operator’s subscribers were Bukovel, Slavske, and Dragobrat. The tourist peak of mobility of Ukrainians who went to ski resorts fell on December 31, 2020, January 1, January 2, January 8 and January 9, 2021.
According to the company, the majority of Ukrainians went abroad to Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Moldova and Romania. At the same time, in 2019, Kyivstar subscribers preferred Poland, Egypt, Moldova, the Czech Republic and Germany.
In addition, according to the data provided, in 2020, new directions appeared among the countries that were visited by Kyivstar subscribers on New Year’s holidays, such as the Maldives, Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, and Tanzania.
The company said that the number of tourists who traveled abroad in 2020 fell by 81% compared to 2019.
“Big Data remains a strategic business direction in Kyivstar. Its potential is huge, because analytics helps in the development of various smart ecosystems, including urban ones in terms of tourism potential or infrastructure improvement. And Kyivstar has everything necessary resources for developing the sector: data, technical equipment, a team of analysts and data scientists, innovative technologies and opportunities,” the press service of Kyivstar said, quoting New Business Director at Kyivstar Ilya Polshakov.
The operator said that the mobility data for subscriber groups was analyzed from December 24, 2020 to January 10, 2021.
When determining a trip within Ukraine, only one settlement was taken into account, in which the subscriber spent more time, but no less than two days. When determining a foreign trip, only one country was taken into account in which the subscriber spent the most time.
European Travel Insurance (ERV, Kyiv) in three summer months of 2020 insured 63% fewer tourists than a year ago, when over 612,000 tourists were insured, the insurance company has said in a press release.
The number of tourists insured by the company who traveled in Ukraine fell by 58% and those traveling abroad – by 64%. In June-August 2020, ERV insured more than 191,000 tourists who traveled abroad, and more than 35,000 tourists who traveled across the country.
“For the company, as well as for the entire tourism industry, the summer was difficult. It was unrealistic to make any plans in the ever-changing situation on the travel market. Although the borders opened and air traffic resumed early June, tourists are seriously scared by the sad experience of quarantine, they were not in a hurry to plunge into the world of travel again. During the summer, the tourism business learned to work in a pandemic, and tourists got used to traveling in new realities,” ERV said.
According to the company, in general, over the summer period, 1,873 insurance accidents were registered with tourists abroad for the amount of UAH 10,602 and 45 – with those traveling across the territory of Ukraine for a total of UAH 122,000.
If in June only 86 insurance accidents with tourists abroad were recorded, then in August their number increased to 1,417 for the amount of UAH 7.326 million. Of these, 908 cases occurred in Turkey (for comparison: in July, 360 insurance accidents were recorded abroad, 243 of them occurred with vacationers in Turkey, 215 cases occurred in Egypt, 121 accidents occurred with tourists in Bulgaria. Other insured accidents in August were reported with tourists in Croatia (51), Montenegro (31) and Albania (14).
