If you were planning to be one of the first tourists to many parts of Europe later this month, it looks like that may not be so realistic anymore…

European border closure may be extended

As of now most external European borders are closed for non-essential travel through June 15, 2020. This includes 30 countries — the 26 European Union countries, plus Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.

The reopening date for external borders has already been pushed back twice, as the closure was initially through mid-April, and then after that was extended through mid-May.

Since last week there have been discussions about border restrictions being extended beyond the current June 15 timeline, and late last week the European Interior Ministers have outlined plans to extend the current ban through at least July 1, 2020, if not longer.

Best I can tell there hasn’t been a final ruling one way or another, but it increasingly looks like this may be the case.

EU border closures could be extended beyond June 15

Implications of EU borders remaining closed?

As you might expect, borders remaining closed potentially has a lot of implications, especially as different countries are at different stages of handling the current pandemic:

  • In addition to external borders opening up, another point of discussion revolves around borders between European countries reopening, as many countries haven’t allowed free movement within the EU
  • Since there have been restrictions on free travel anyway, countries don’t necessarily have to go along with what’s decided, though that would create further complications; up until now countries have overwhelmingly followed the guidance

This would also likely make Iceland off bounds for the second half of June. Earlier I wrote about how Icelandair has published their updated schedule for the second half of June, when the country was supposed to start welcoming tourists. Oddly North American flights were missing from the schedule, and it’s now becoming clearer what’s going on.

I spoke to someone who works in communications at Icelandair, who explained to me that the reason Icelandair hasn’t scheduled any flights to North America for the second half of June is because the airline is expecting the current border closure to be extended through July 1, 2020, at a minimum (and Iceland is expected to follow along with what the rest of Europe decides).

Iceland isn’t the only country that was potentially encouraging tourists in the second half of June — Greece was also planning on welcoming many tourists as of June 15, 2020, but that could now be put on hold.

Iceland may not open to Americans until at least July

This really is a time for planning last minute travel

As I wrote about last week, if you’re going to travel this summer, it really pays to book very last minute. Iceland is supposed to open to tourists from around the globe a week from today, but even that is now up in the air.

Traveling to Greece next week may be off the table for many

Bottom line

While no final decision has been made, it does increasingly look like external borders for at least 30 European countries will remain closed throughout June, likely meaning that travel to Greece or Iceland (among other countries) won’t be practical in the coming weeks.

If you’ve been considering travel to Europe in the coming weeks, you may want to wait until a final decision has been made. We’ll have to see how this evolves, and if there’s any more info I’ll be sure to update this post. We also update our list of country closures and restrictions every weekday.

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