Cyprus is not on Belgium’s list of category B countries, its foreign ministry clarified on Thursday evening after it said Belgian media got the wrong end of the stick on the issue.
It was reported earlier in the day that Belgium had placed Cyprus along with the UK on its orange list, or Category B, for coronavirus-related travel restrictions has baffled experts who have urged an immediate correction.
Notably, Sweden and Italy were placed above Cyprus and were in the green category, causing much confusion.
Even Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou expressed surprise. “I am wondering with what criteria and which data was used,” Ioannou said earlier on Thursday. “Obviously some mistake may have happened from their specialists in Belgium.”
The clarification later was made to the Cyprus New Agency by the Belgian foreign ministry. It said the categories referred not to people entering Belgium. Rather it referred to which categories Belgians were placed for travel to other countries.
Cyprus has Belgium on category B, which means arrivals from there must present a negative Covid test less 72 hours old or less.
The embassy source said there had been a misunderstanding of the categories by the Belgian media and no restrictions were in place there for people arriving from Cyprus or Greece, or any other EU country.
The ministry has relabelled the relevant section of its website to ‘countries where you [Belgians] are welcome’ and ‘risk zones, quarantine’, it said.
https://diplomatie.belgium.be/fr
