Germany will extend its travel warning for non-European countries, including Turkey, until the end of August but lift border controls for all its neighbors by mid-June, the foreign minister said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
As the coronavirus crisis in many European countries eases somewhat, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Germany does not yet have systems with the rest of the world to assess and coordinate travel without entailing potentially incalculable risks.
“We cannot and will not risk Germans being stranded all over the world again this summer or holidaymakers returning to Germany with the virus undetected,” Maas said in a statement.
Aware that many holidaymakers want to travel to destinations including Turkey, the United States, North Africa and Southeast Asia, Maas said the government would look at the travel warning before September.
Germany had already announced it would lift a blanket travel ban for EU members, Britain, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland from June 15, opening the way to separate travel advice for individual regions.