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Locked away in a meeting room in Brussels, officials are debating who will be allowed to enter the EU on July 1 when the bloc's international borders are scheduled to be opened - and who will be forbidden.

There are two lists, one for those that will be accepted, and one for those who will not, Euronews reports.

The list has already aroused controversy after sources revealed that the United States - the worst-affected country worldwide by COVID-19 with more than 2.4 million cases, is on the latter list.

Euronews has obtained, from EU diplomatic sources, the full draft list of the countries for which Europe's borders will be open, which shows that Armenia, Brazil, Qatar, the US and Russia are indeed not on the approved list.

The full list of countries whose nationals will be allowed to enter Europe according to the draft list is as follows: Vatican City, Monaco, Montenegro, Andorra, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Albania, Turkey, Kosovo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Myanmar, Mongolia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Bhutan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, India, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Palau, New Zealand, Australia, Dominica, Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Uruguay, Jamaica, Cuba, Guyana, Paraguay, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Canada, Angola, Tunisia, Namibia, Uganda, Mozambique, Mauritius, Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt.

Diplomatic sources also hinted to Euronews that there is disagreement between nations on the criteria to use for this decision, with some maintaining that data about COVID rates is not reliable.