SELECT 
  a.code, 
  b.country 
FROM 
  cscart_countries as a 
  LEFT JOIN cscart_country_descriptions as b ON b.code = a.code 
  AND b.lang_code = 'en' 
WHERE 
  a.status = 'A' 
ORDER BY 
  b.country

Query time 0.00058

JSON explain

{
  "query_block": {
    "select_id": 1,
    "filesort": {
      "sort_key": "b.country",
      "temporary_table": {
        "table": {
          "table_name": "a",
          "access_type": "ref",
          "possible_keys": ["status"],
          "key": "status",
          "key_length": "3",
          "used_key_parts": ["status"],
          "ref": ["const"],
          "rows": 63,
          "filtered": 100,
          "attached_condition": "a.`status` = 'A'",
          "using_index": true
        },
        "table": {
          "table_name": "b",
          "access_type": "eq_ref",
          "possible_keys": ["PRIMARY"],
          "key": "PRIMARY",
          "key_length": "12",
          "used_key_parts": ["code", "lang_code"],
          "ref": ["cscart_migrate.a.code", "const"],
          "rows": 1,
          "filtered": 100,
          "attached_condition": "trigcond(b.lang_code = 'en')"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Result

code country
AU Australia
AT Austria
BS Bahamas
BE Belgium
BM Bermuda
BR Brazil
CA Canada
KY Cayman Islands
CN China
CR Costa Rica
CW CuraƧao
CY Cyprus
CZ Czech Republic
DK Denmark
DO Dominican Republic
EG Egypt
SV El Salvador
FI Finland
FR France
DE Germany
GR Greece
GT Guatemala
HN Honduras
HK Hong Kong
HU Hungary
IE Ireland
IL Israel
IT Italy
JP Japan
KR Korea, Republic of
LI Liechtenstein
LT Lithuania
LU Luxembourg
MG Madagascar
MW Malawi
MY Malaysia
MX Mexico
MC Monaco
MA Morocco
NL Netherlands
NZ New Zealand
NO Norway
OM Oman
PA Panama
PH Philippines
PL Poland
PT Portugal
PR Puerto Rico
QA Qatar
RU Russian Federation
SG Singapore
SX Sint Maarten
ZA South Africa
ES Spain
SE Sweden
CH Switzerland
TW Taiwan
TH Thailand
TR Turkey
AE United Arab Emirates
GB United Kingdom (Great Britain)
US United States
VI United States Virgin Islands