The decision of the Finnish Government, which had previously opened its borders to Norway, Denmark and the three Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -, is based on the maximum number of eight contagions per 100 thousand inhabitants during the last 14 days, criterion that, in addition to the countries mentioned, currently only 12 other Europeans fulfil.

Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, in the Schengen area, plus Croatia, Cyprus and Ireland, outside of it, are the countries to which the Helsinki authorities will reopen their borders.

Both tourists from those countries and Finns who return from them will be able to freely enter the country without being asked to complete a 14-day quarantine, a recommendation that will, however, remain in force for the rest of the states around the world.

The Finnish Government has clarified that it will update the list on 10 July, so that from then on, other countries that meet the criteria required by Helsinki may be included.

To date, Finland, which has about 5.5 million inhabitants, has accounted for 327 deaths out of 7,155 cases of contamination with the new coronavirus, although the rate of contagion has dropped significantly in recent weeks, with only 23 people hospitalised, two only in intensive care.

In Portugal, with about 10.28 million inhabitants, 1,540 people died (six more since Monday) of the 39,737 confirmed as infected (345 more in the last 24 hours).

On the 20th of this month, in an interview with the Lusa agency, the Portuguese foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, when reacting to the decisions of some Nordic and Baltic countries, considered it “legitimate to think” that the imposition of restrictions on flights between countries of the European Union is due to competition for tourist markets, given the serious crisis in the sector across the EU.

Santos Silva insisted that the criterion used, for example, by Denmark - less than 20 infections per 100,000 inhabitants -, is just one of several indicators and Portugal "disputes that only one indicator is used".

Refuting the restrictions, Santos Silva insisted that they are based on data that do not reflect the complexity of the epidemiological situation.

“What is more credible? A country that has had more than 500 cases a day and from one moment to the next seems to have stopped, or a country like Germany, which has always had many cases, has always managed to respond well from the point of view of its health system, as well as Portugal too, and who, turning around, finds new outbreaks?”, he asks.

The minister assured that he understood that the reopening of borders in Europe "is not unconditional" and "that each Member State can take the measures it sees fit to guarantee maximum health security for its citizens, residents and visitors".

"We do not dispute that countries like Denmark or the Czech Republic have this concern, what we dispute is that they use only one indicator and an inappropriate indicator", he explained at the time.