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EU countries agree to impose temporary emergency restrictions on all travel into the EU from Southern Africa region
On 26 November 2021, EU countries met in an emergency high-level IPCR roundtable to coordinate the EU response to the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant in Southern Africa called B.1.1.529 or Omicron.
Following the discussion and the input from the experts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), EU countries agreed to activate the emergency brake in line with the provisions of the Council recommendation on the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU (2020/912).
EU countries agreed to urgently impose temporary restrictions on all travel into the EU from the countries of the region:
- Botswana
- Eswatini
- Lesotho
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- South Africa
- Zimbabwe
These temporary restrictions include suspending passenger flights from affected countries. Member states are also asked to discourage travel to these countries for EU citizens.
EU countries will keep the situation under review and continue monitoring the issue in the coming days.