EU helps citizens travel safely across Europe: 20 million visits to the Re-open EU platform

Re-open EU is the European Commission's free platform, which provides timely information on travel restrictions, public health and safety measures, helping all to plan and prepare safe holidays, personal and work trips across Europe. It now also informs travellers about the use of EU Digital COVID Certificates.

Today, Re-open EU reached 20 million visits to the website, on top of 1.5 million downloads of the mobile application, showing the popularity, as well as the practical value of the tool.

Commenting on this new milestone, Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: 'After the challenging year we have all had, people want to travel in Europe to reconnect with their loved ones or to take some time off and relax abroad. However, people should travel safely, respecting the entry requirements and health measures of their destinations. Re-open EU helps millions of Europeans by providing information in one single place on all the relevant health and travel measures of 31 European countries.'

In one single place, Re-open EU provides up to date information from all the 27 EU Member States, as well as Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland on travel measures, including quarantine and testing requirements.

A 'travel plan' feature offers a simplified overview of measures from the country of origin to the country of destination, including transits, for the 31 participating countries.

Re-open EU is available in the 24 official EU languages thanks to the use of machine translation, and it is easily accessible on desktop and mobile.

Re-open EU is also available as a free mobile app on Android and iOS.

Helping citizens to travel safely in the pandemic

To slow down the spread of coronavirus and protect the health and well-being of Europeans, some travel restrictions have been necessary.

With full respect of these health and safety measures, the European Commission is doing its utmost to allow people to meet friends and family, travel for work and to ensure free movement of citizens, goods and services.

The Commission has launched several initiatives besides Re-open EU to help citizens travel safely across Europe. Among those initiatives, the Commission proposed the introduction of the EU Digital COVID Certificate.

EU institutions approved the proposal in record time, which is now widely implemented across Europe to ensure a common European system of proofs of vaccination, negative test results and recovery from COVID-19.

The Commission also worked with the EU Member States on the coordination of restrictions on travel into the EU from third countries, as well as on passenger locator forms and the interoperability of contact tracing apps, among other measures.

More on Re-Open EU

On 15 June 2020, the Commission launched the RE-open EU website 'with an interactive map combining information from Member States and tourist and travel industry'. The launch of the website was part of the Commission's Tourism and Transport package of 13 May 2020, which aimed to rebuild confidence among travellers in the EU and help European tourism resume safely.

After 2020 October, Re-open EU was streamlined into a one-stop shop for health and travel measures, including epidemiological data and colour coding map from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

On 15 December 2020, Re-open EU was released also as a mobile App for Android and iOS.

Connected to the Commission Communication 17 March 2021, a new 'travel plan' feature of Re-open EU was released. Subsequently, information was added on the EU Digital COVID Certificate.

Developed by the Commission's Joint Research Centre, Re-open EU is updated daily. EU Member States and other participating European countries are responsible for informing the Commission on their safety measures and restrictions and any changes to these. The Commission then publishes this information on Re-open EU.

Epidemiological updates are retrieved from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on a daily basis, with a major weekly update on Thursdays for the 'EU Traffic Lights' map and epidemiological data at the regional level.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.