Greece-Israel Travel Agreement Causing Polemics in EU
The agreement reached between Greece and Israel last week to permit vaccinated travellers facilitated entry to each other’s countries has sparked controversies in the European Union.
The deal between both territories permits travellers from both countries to visit each other’s territory without being required to follow quarantine rules or testing. However, since Greece is a member of the Schengen Zone, it means that once someone enters Greece, they will be eligible to move freely throughout the whole zone, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.
Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis was among the first persons to support the idea of launching vaccination certificates for travellers, which would facilitate the travel process for all persons who have been vaccinated against the Coronavirus disease.
“We need to facilitate travellers once they provide easy proof of vaccination, and this is what we intend to do with Israel,” Mitsotakis pointed out in this regard during the conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli’s Prime Minister said that Mitsotakis “volunteered that Greece, their leading hospital, would partake in the clinical trials” for a new vaccine which is developed by Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv and that this would be “an example of our cooperation in forging ahead to new areas.”
The joint agreement was seen as an innovative way to help the economic sector recover from the COVID-19 situation. One in five workers are employed in Greece’s tourism sector, which marked a 4 billion euros decrease in revenues ($4.81 billion) during last year, compared to 2019 figures (18 billion in 2019).
On February 14, Cyprus’ President Nicos Anastasiades said that he is interested in reaching the same deal with Israel, which is expected to become functional by April 1.
“The resumption of unrestricted free movement is of great importance to Cyprus, which is a tourism-dependent country,” Anastasiades stressed.
Besides Greece and Cyprus, the other two European countries, Spain and Portugal, seek to follow the same path.
European countries and organizations have different opinions regarding the creation of vaccination documents, which would help them travel freely to foreigner countries.
While the initiative has been supported as yet by many countries, such as Denmark, Cyprus, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Iceland, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden, as well as the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the World Health Organization Committee opposed the idea stressing that vaccines’ effect on reducing transmission is not yet known.
Greek Prime Minister previously urged the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen to back the proposal of launching such a document. The EC’ President welcomed the idea; however, she stressed that the issue should first be discussed between European Union countries.
