Revealed: Draft list of countries that will be allowed to enter #EU when borders open

Locked away in a meeting room in Brussels, officials are debating who will be allowed to enter the EU on July 1 when the bloc's international borders are scheduled to be opened - and who will be forbidden.

There are two lists, one for those that will be accepted, and one for those who will not.

The list has already aroused controversy after sources revealed that the United States - the worst-affected country worldwide by COVID-19 with more than 2.4 million cases, is on the latter list.

On Thursday, European officials failed to reach a decision on which countries will be barred from entry after the bloc's external borders open, with an EU diplomat telling Euronews that officials "could not reach an agreement" and that talks would continue into Friday.

Euronews has obtained, from EU diplomatic sources, the full draft list of the countries for which Europe's borders will be open, and can confirm what we reported on Wednesday that Brazil, Qatar, the US and Russia are indeed not on the approved list.

The full list of countries whose nationals will be allowed to enter Europe according to the draft list is as follows:

Vatican City, Monaco, Montenegro, Andorra, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Albania, Turkey, Kosovo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, China,Thailand, Myanmar, Mongolia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Bhutan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, India, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Palau, New Zealand, Australia, Dominica, Bahamas,Saint Lucia, Uruguay, Jamaica, Cuba, Guyana, Paraguay, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Canada,Angola, Tunisia, Namibia, Uganda, Mozambique, Mauritius, Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt.