EU set to reopen for travel

Lotoya Harding joins Myles Udland, Brian Sozzi, and Julie Hyman to discuss the European Union plans to lift COVID restrictions for outside travel as vaccine rollout continues globally.

Video transcript

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MYLES UDLAND: Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live" on this Friday morning. As the summer travel season really gets underway, some good news for the European Union, and specifically Americans who would like to travel across the Atlantic. Some changes to the EU's rules on who can enter the bloc coming out today. Yahoo Finance's LaToya Harding joins us now with the details. LaToya.

LATOYA HARDING: Yeah, that's right. Great news for people living in America who wants to travel to Europe this summer. So the European Union is set to lift a ban on non-essential travel to people coming into the EU from the United States. And of course, that's a measure that's been in place for more than a year. So basically, the US was added to a whitelist of destinations that have being cleared for travel, and that includes the likes of Australia, China, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, and others.

The EU said selected countries were based on their infection rates, and of course, their COVID response, and the reliability of available information and data sources. Basically, each country within Europe will decide what restrictions to place on visitors. And obviously, as people travel into Europe, they might face some restrictions, such as COVID test, quarantine and proof of vaccination or otherwise. But again, that's to be decided separately by each country in Europe.

And this all comes as the European Commission faced pressure from countries that are heavily dependent on tourism. So the likes of Spain, Italy, and Portugal, of course, as they're attempting to save the summer tourism season. Now airlines have been urging governments for changes, some of which we've seen this week even with Ryanair threatening legal action.

But on the back of the news, we've seen some airlines again, positive movement in terms of the stock. And we saw even yesterday airlines rallying as we had similar news coming from the UK that measures they might open up measures to quarantine-free travel for those fully vaccinated. So the UK government is considering a similar move, and we might see measures seen today by the EU in the UK very soon. But in terms of the EU new rules, they will come into effect in a number of days. We're just waiting for those to be published in the official Journal of the EU.

MYLES UDLAND: All right, Yahoo Finance's LaToya Harding with the latest updates on whether and when you can travel to the EU.