Coronavirus in Czechia: Can the US Citizens Enter the EU?

The epidemiologic situation in some countries is constantly worsening and because of that, the European Parliament has recently decided that citizens of these countries won’t be allowed to enter the European Union. This affects particularly countries like the USA, Russia, and Brazil where the situation seems to be especially bleak. The final decision is, however, up to the individual member states. So who can enter the EU and who can arrive in the Czech Republic now that we are still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic?

The situation in the USA

With the US government and the president in particular completely underestimating the virus it should be no surprise that the number of infected people has been skyrocketing. The neglectful and reckless behavior of the people who refuse to wear face masks and follow social distancing rules, obviously, doesn’t help either.

Despite the efforts of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and many other people – be it experts, essential workers, or just the regular people who decided to act responsibly – it’s unlikely that the situation will get better any time soon. Fauci himself predicted that the daily number of Americans newly infected with COVID-19 might soon rise to 100.000 which doesn’t seem to be too far-fetched nowadays. This means that the non-essential travelers from the USA won’t be probably able to set their feet on the European soil for quite some time. Right now the only EU country that allows the American citizens to arrive is Croatia.

Arriving in the Czech Republic

Despite these bleak predictions and the EU’s ban on non-essential travelers from some countries, it doesn’t mean that the citizens of these countries can’t get to the EU at all. Together with the list of countries whose citizens can enter the EU and countries whose citizens cannot, the European Parliament also released a list of exceptions – that is people from the banned countries who can arrive despite the ban.

Among these exceptions there are, for example:

• Healthcare professionals, health researchers, and elderly care professionals;
• Passengers travelling for imperative family reasons;
• Third-country nationals travelling for the purpose of study;
• Highly qualified third-country workers if their employment is necessary for the economy and the work cannot be postponed or performed abroad.

The complete list of exceptions is available in this document.

Considering that this ban is more of a recommendation for the member states, it generally means that the same rules that apply to other non-EU countries also apply to the countries whose citizens have been outright banned from entering the EU. In other words, all people arriving in the Czech Republic from the non-EU countries considered unsafe, still have to follow the rules set by the Czech Ministry of the Interior. More detailed information can be found in the following document. 

There are also four Czech embassies in the USA that have partially resumed accepting new visa and residence permit applications and restored all previously suspended proceedings. Those people who wanted to relocate to the Czech Republic or extend their visa or residence permit but couldn’t do it because of coronavirus can do it now. That way they’ll be able to enter the country despite the ban.

Let us know and get your residence permit as soon as possible to be safe in the future in case the pandemic returns. Having a residence permit is the best way of making sure you’ll be able to return to the Czech Republic even if the borders are closed again.

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Sources: Novinky.cz article I and article II (in Czech only), European Parliament, Seznamzpravy.cz (in Czech only), Schengenvisainfo.com, Ministry of the Interior article I and article II

Source of the photo: Pixabay.com