Germany to lift travel warning for Europe from June 15

Germany will lift its blanket travel warning for European nations from June 15, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday, as the continent looks to further ease restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus.

“We have decided today that the travel warning for the named circle of countries will not be continued but replaced by travel advice,” Maas said, referring to EU nations plus a handful of countries in the region including Switzerland and Iceland.

The warning will be replaced by advice for individual nations, “provided that there are no longer any entry bans or large-scale lockdowns in the respective countries”, he said.

Germany will also be watching contagion data very carefully, he added, saying that warnings could be reintroduced if new infections were to reach 50 per 100,000 people in a week in the country concerned.

Germany introduced an unprecedented warning against all foreign travel in mid-March as part of measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

But with new infections sharply down, the government is looking for ways to get the economy up and running again.