European Union governments agreed on Wednesday to add Qatar and 10 other countries to their list of states from which they will allow non-essential travel, EU diplomats said.

Ambassadors from the EU's 27 states approved the additions at a meeting on Wednesday, with the change to take effect in the coming days.

Ex-EU member Britain, where the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus has caused a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, is not on the list.

The 11 countries joining it are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Canada, Jordan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

EU countries have been recommended to gradually to lift travel restrictions for the 14 countries currently on the list - Albania, Australia, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Rwanda, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

Chinese administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau are also included.

Individual EU countries can still opt to demand a negative COVID-19 test or a period of quarantine.