Estonia to Reopen Its Borders to EU/Schengen Residents from Monday, June 1

The Estonian authorities have announced that residents of the European Union / Schengen Area Member states and of the United Kingdom will be eligible to enter the country from Monday, June 1, after the country had banned them from entering for non-essential purposes amid the Coronavirus outbreak in Europe.

Despite that all residents of the aforementioned areas will be able to enter Estonia as of next week, some of them may be subject to the 14 days quarantine.

“The quarantine obligation of a traveller to Estonia depends on whether the proportion of people infected with the coronavirus is higher than 15 from the country of origin. This means that there should be 15 or fewer infected people per 100,000 inhabitants in the host country in the last 14 days,” a press release of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior explains.

The rule means that people coming to Estonia from an EU/Schengen country that has a higher rate of infected people than 15 per 100,000, will have to remain in quarantine for two weeks upon arrival in Estonia.

The Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu, who confirmed the decision, noted that there was a possibility for tests to be offered at the airports, as a way to avoid quarantine for those resulting negative.

“We are currently working on an alternative so that if a person can produce evidence of a negative COVID-19 virus test or is tested at an Estonian airport, for example, it would be possible to shorten the quarantine time,” he said.

According to the Foreign Minister, other Schengen countries are also considering in introducing a similar model like this one, as a practical method to make the movement of people possible once again.

“I think that the possibility of testing to release Estonian citizens from quarantine, if they arrive from Germany, for example, would give objective confidence and certainty that the person is not infected,” he said.

Estonia’s move follows another taken earlier this month alongside with the two other Baltic states, Latvia and Lithuania. As of May 15, residents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who do not show symptoms of the deadly virus have been allowed to move freely between the three countries without restrictions and without being a subject to the mandatory quarantine.