Lithuania may open up its borders to travel from Georgia and Ukraine next month, the country's foreign minister has hinted.
“Certain outbound routes from the Schengen area are likely to be reopened as of July 1, but it will not be something massive and incautious. Definitely not. We hope to resume contact with Georgia and Ukraine, and we also hoped to do so with Israel, but the situation has worsened there recently,” Linkevičius told LRT RADIO on Tuesday.
So far, Lithuania has allowed unrestricted travel from countries within the European Economic Area – as well as Switzerland and the UK – with low Covid-19 infection rates. These include all the EEA countries except Sweden and Portugal as well as the UK where new coronavirus infections exceeded 25 per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.
Read more: Lithuania keeps 28 countries on coronavirus ‘safe list’
Linkevičius confirmed there was no plan to resume flights between Lithuania and the UK.
“We have no plans to resume those routes with the UK yet. People can come to Lithuania from there but it's more complicated, more expensive, and that's a certain filter, and that's being done purposefully as we see that's not safe,” Linkevičius said.
Commenting on the European Commission's call to reopen external borders as of July, Linkevičius noted that it was only a recommendation.
“We are trying to do it regionally. By setting an example for everyone, we created the so-called ‘Baltic bubble’ on May 15, a zone of free travel [across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia], and showed that we need to coordinate our actions more. As for [opening borders on] July 1, it will be similar, as we are discussing criteria,” the minister said.
Due to high numbers of coronavirus cases, citizens and legal residents of Sweden, Portugal and the UK are still barred from coming to Lithuania.
Lithuanian citizens are allowed to return from any country.
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