ZAGREB, 22 May 2021 - Germany has taken Croatia off the red list of countries with a high risk of coronavirus, the Robert Koch Institute said on Friday, a step that will facilitate travel to Germany.

As of midnight on Sunday, Croatia will no longer be considered a high-risk but a risk region, the federal institute of epidemiology said.

That means that upon arriving in Germany, travellers from Croatia will not have to go into mandatory ten-day quarantine but produce a negative coronavirus test. Until now they could end quarantine after five days with a negative test.

For those travelling to Germany by plane, a negative test before boarding is still required.

A test is not required for persons who have received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine or have recovered from the disease.

However, travellers from Croatia, like all those arriving in Germany from high-risk or risk regions, must register in advance at the German government's website.

The level of risk has also been reduced for travellers from Slovenia and France. Most countries in Southeast Europe, including Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, were declared risk instead of high-risk regions last week.

For more about Covid-19 in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

April 20, 2021 - The British government has announced that Croatia will not be on red list despite its current epidemiological situation, due to political and economical reasons.

As Jutarnji.hr reports, the United States, Gibraltar, Israel, and Iceland will be on the ‘green’ list of eight countries or territories that the British government plans to mark safe for travel from May 17, according to a survey commissioned by the travel sector there.

According to that model, the list should include Malta and Ireland, but also Australia and New Zealand, which currently keep the borders closed to foreign tourists, writes the Daily Telegraph.

The latest report was produced by Robert Boyle, a former chief strategist at British Airways, and confirmed the British government's announcement that only a handful of countries would be put on the green list when the UK ban on travel abroad for unnecessary travel is lifted on 17 May.

Most European countries are still on the orange list, which means that every tourist returning from such countries must be placed in 10-day house isolation, or on the red list, which means that returnees from those countries must be quarantined at a hotel for about 2,000 euros per person.

Although according to the British government's criteria, France, Turkey, the Netherlands, Croatia, Sweden, Belgium, and Luxembourg should also be on the red list, this is very unlikely to happen for political and economic reasons, according to the Telegraph.

Split Airport (Pixsell)

It is well known that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is known as a frequent guest on the Adriatic coast during the summer months. He has visited, among other places, Brač, Mljet, and the Dubrovnik area.

Spain, Greece, Italy, and Cyprus, popular tourist destinations, are on the orange list due to high infection rates but could be on the green list until June 28, when the government plans to revise the list.

‘‘Last year, the Spanish and Greek islands were in the group of low-risk countries due to covid as opposed to the mainland and this could happen again this year’’, the report said.

The report ranked 52 states according to four government criteria: vaccination rate, the incidence of new infections, the prevalence of virus strains, and virus genome sequencing capacities. The information obtained was arranged in one table, and only five countries /territories: the USA, Israel, Gibraltar, the United Arab Emirates, and Malta, exceed the green limit of 30 percent of the population who received a single dose of vaccine. However, that table excludes Australia and New Zealand, which have successfully stopped the spread of the virus.

Only seven countries are on the green list thanks to the low infection rate - up to 50 cases of coronavirus per million inhabitants: China, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Iceland, and Gibraltar.

Turkey, Luxembourg, Finland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and South Africa are in the worst position due to the high percentage of new strains per million inhabitants, while Slovenia, Slovakia, Japan, Bulgaria, Australia, and New Zealand are in the best position by that criterion.

The countries with the best capacities for sequencing the virus genome are the Netherlands, Ireland, and Luxembourg.

Gibraltar is the safest with zero cases of coronavirus and a fully vaccinated population. Israel must be next in all likelihood. It has vaccinated almost the entire population, and the number of new cases is below last year’s threshold.

Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, and Ireland are followed by the United States, although the report states that they may not be on the green list if the number of new infections does not fall.

‘‘The United Kingdom could allow countries that are on the orange list by the number of newly infected to go green, but only if they had a high vaccination rate. Thus, in theory, Malta and the United Arab Emirates could be on the green list’’, the report said.

EasyJet CEO Johan Lindgren said he expected Croatia, along with France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey, to be put on the green list.

Follow the latest on flights to Croatia HERE and the latest travel updates and COVID-19 news from Croatia HERE.

For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

September 10, 2020 - According to Večernji, the German red list became 'richer' for another two counties. Last night Germany declared the Dubrovnik-Neretva and Požega-Slavonia counties as risk regions due to the increase in the number of cases of coronavirus infection.

As previously reported, Germany had already considered adding these two Croatian counties to the red list, along with the City of Zagreb, for which the Germans also point out that there are a large number of cases of coronavirus infection. But for now, Zagreb has not been put on the red list.

Germany has been closely monitoring the epidemiological situation in these regions and there was already a possibility that one or more of these counties would be declared risk areas and added to the German red list.

The German Foreign Ministry has announced that the two counties will join the Split-Dalmatia, Zadar, and Šibenik-Knin counties, which have already been put on the red list. Germany is the only country that has taken into account Croatian counties and, according to epidemiological situations in each county, decided to put them the red list, unlike other countries that simply put the whole of Croatia on the red list.

Germany considers high-risk areas to be countries or regions where 50 or more cases of the new coronavirus infection per 100,000 people have been reported throughout seven days. Declaring a region risky does not mean banning travel, but it is recommended to avoid all travel that is not necessary. Upon return, a free COVID-19 test is mandatory, and, if necessary, self-isolation.

The number of infected people varies by county in Croatia, so, for example, Istria County has a better epidemiological situation than other counties that have been put on the red list. Germany is the only country in the region that has not put Istria County on the red list. That is why mostly German tourists are staying there at the moment, making up 40,000 out of 67,000 guests in total.

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ZAGREB, Aug 31, 2020 - "I believe that together with the relevant authorities they too will approach the matter by differentiating between Croatian counties on the basis of the number of people infected," Plenkovic said after meeting with Jansa on the margins of the 15th Bled Strategic Forum.

Plenkovic said that Slovenia is closely monitoring the daily situation regarding the coronavirus outbreak in Croatia and is aware that Croatian counties like Istria, Primorje-Gorski Kotar, and Lika-Senj have a relatively small number of people infected, even after the total number has increased at the state level.

"I believe that they will make that distinction," said Plenkovic.

Slovenia put Croatia on its red list in mid-August, introducing mandatory quarantine for anyone entering Slovenia from Croatia.

Plenkovic also had a bilateral meeting with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Orban has announced that Hungary will be closing its borders to all foreigners as of Tuesday. Hungarian citizens returning home will have to spend two weeks in isolation and have at least two negative Covid-19 test results.

The main reason for the ramped-up measures in Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria is the start of the school year which begins one week earlier than in Croatia, Plenkovic underlined.

"In a way that was expected. We managed to delay their measures as much as possible until the end of August so that Croatia's tourism season could be as good as possible," he added and concluded that not one country wanted to have restrictions in force for too long.

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ZAGREB, July 23, 2020 - Slovenia will not put Croatia for now on the red list of countries for which quarantine is mandatory, Slovenian Health Minister Tomaz Gantar said in Ljubljana on Thursday.

For now "there is no initiative to declare Croatia a red zone," he told press.

Decisions on putting countries on the red list are not made so fast and epidemiologists who follow the situation in neighbouring countries want these decisions to be agreed and that there is a joint response, Gantar said.

It is good, he added, that Croatia has imposed new measures to contain the spread of coronavirus and restricted entry from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, all of which are on Slovenia's red list.

According to its Public Health Institute, Slovenia had 12 new cases per 100,000 over the past fortnight. Croatia had twice as many. Both are in the yellow epidemiological zone.

Gantar said that in order to determine a destination's safety, besides the number of coronavirus cases, additional criteria were being used over the past fortnight, such as whether a country was a neighbour with a high passenger frequency or a distant one from which the risk of importing the virus was far smaller.

Also taken into account is the number of persons tested per inhabitants and a comparison with Slovenia's epidemiological situation.