COVID-19: Nigerians excluded from list of eligible travellers to Europe after border reopening

The European Union Commission has excluded Nigeria from the list of countries whose nationals will be allowed in the region when the borders are open from July 1.

The European countries had shut their borders when the COVID-19 pandemic spread into the region.

With the easing of lockdown restrictions, the EU had released a draft list of 54 countries that will be granted entry into the borders.

An update of the countries on the entry list to Europe are Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco and New Zealand.

Others are Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and China.

On June 11, the European Commission had asked its member to extend entry ban on third-country nationals until June 30.

The United States, Brazil and Russia were also exempted on the approved list.

Eric Mamer, spokesperson for the EU commission, said the criteria used to select the countries is based on their health situation.

“The European Union has an internal process to determine from which countries it would be safe to accept travellers,” he said.