Nor­we­gi­an regu­la­ti­ons for inter­na­tio­nal tra­vel­ling to chan­ge soon

A cou­ple of inte­res­t­ing press releases saw the light of day in Oslo last Fri­day (18 June), inclu­ding infor­ma­ti­on about tou­rism and ship-based tou­rism (crui­ses and coas­tal crui­ses) in Nor­way inclu­ding Spits­ber­gen.

News from Nor­way about inter­na­tio­nal tra­vel­ling

The­re is ano­ther press release con­cer­ning inter­na­tio­nal tra­vel­ling. Non-Nor­we­gi­ans may initi­al­ly get the impres­si­on that the release is not too exci­ting, but the­re is some good stuff hid­den in the beau­ro­cra­tic wor­ding of the release, espe­ci­al­ly near the end. It starts on a lower level of exci­te­ment: the colours of the FHI chart, which is important infor­ma­ti­on for Euro­pean tra­vel­lers, are now matching Euro­pean colours again. Which is nice for ever­y­bo­dy who pre­fers green abo­ve yel­low, but it doesn’t chan­ge much. The latest FHI map, updated today (21 June), shows only two Euro­pean count­ries out­side Scan­di­na­via in green, name­ly Pol­and and Roma­nia.

Nor­way will lift tra­vel war­nings for Euro­pe (Schen­gen trea­ty count­ries), the UK and and a ran­ge of other count­ries from 05 July, sub­ject to future war­nings that may be issued at any time as nee­ded. But this is rele­vant for Norw­gi­ans who want to tra­vel abroad rather than non-Nor­we­gi­ans who want to tra­vel to Nor­way. Also fami­ly visits will be easier: so far limi­t­ed to first-gra­de rela­ti­ves, the list of per­sons who may visit fami­ly in Nor­way is now get­ting lon­ger, inclu­ding for exam­p­le grand­par­ents. That is gre­at for ever­y­bo­dy con­cer­ned, but not a game chan­ger for peo­p­le wis­hing to tra­vel to Nor­way in gene­ral.

Nor­way joins the Euro­pean vac­ci­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­te sys­tem, which may make it signi­fi­cant­ly easier to get some fresh arc­tic wind around the nose this sum­mer for tho­se who have plans.

Coro­na infec­tion values will be “har­mo­nis­ed with Euro­pe”

Fur­ther down in the press release in ques­ti­on, a har­mo­ni­sa­ti­on of infec­tion thres­holds that count­ries need to stay under in order to tra­vel to Nor­way wit­hout qua­ran­ti­ne is men­tio­ned. This may initi­al­ly not sound too exci­ting, but it means that the thres­hold will be lifted from 25 infec­tions per 100,000 peo­p­le within 14 days to 50, some­thing that may be an important chan­ge, as the old thres­hold of 25 is easy to miss even for count­ries with a good deve­lo­p­ment, while 50 gives some more room for smal­ler out­breaks to not ruin ever­yo­dies tra­vel plans. This chan­ge will enter force on 05 July.

Nor­way joins Euro­pean vac­ci­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­te sys­tem

And the­re is yet ano­ther important update: from 24 June, Euro­pean tra­vel­lers can use the Euro­pean digi­tal vac­ci­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­te to docu­ment their vac­ci­na­ti­ons or pre­vious infec­tions, and ful­ly immu­nis­ed tra­vel­lers will be able to enter Nor­way regard­less of the sta­tus of the coun­try whe­re they have stay­ed befo­re ente­ring Nor­way. This may inde­ed chan­ge things for many peo­p­le.

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