The three Baltic republics—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—are planning to open their borders to each other on May 15th, creating a ‘Baltic Bubble’ whose citizens can cross borders freely while no one from outside will be allowed in.
The three have all escaped the worst of the coronavirus sweeping most other European countries with aggressive border restrictions; Latvia has had 18 Covid deaths in its 2 million population, a rate 1/45 that of the UK.
Anyone arriving from outside the bloc will have to spend 14 days in quarantine.
The Lithuanian prime minister, Saulius Skvernelis, said: “We will keep to this principle when dealing with countries where the situation is very bad, which did not take measures to control the virus spread.” However, the economy will still take a serious hit until tourists from Sweden, Finland and Poland are allowed back in.
