Post-Covid tourism hopes buoyed by deal between Greece, Cyprus and Israel | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/15/post-covid-tourism-hopes-buoyed-by-deal-between-greece-cyprus-and-israe
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/70d7888fb70cf8fbbc678aacf86a78316ff131df/0_287_7808_4685/master/7808.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali
Accords between Greece, Cyprus and Israel allowing citizens with Covid-19 vaccination certificates to travel unimpeded between the three countries have been hailed as a possible first step towards normalising tourism during the next phase of the pandemic. The prospect of people being able to move freely in the age of coronavirus received a concrete boost last week when the deal was the centrepiece of a visit to Jerusalem by the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. After signing the agreement with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader suggested similar accords could soon be in the offing.“I expect what we will be doing with Israel to be a trial run of what we can do with other countries,” said Mitsotakis, who first pressed the case for vaccine passports with other EU members last month.
On Valentine’s Day, the Cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades, followed suit flying into Israel to strike the same deal. The agreement is expected to come into effect by 1 April. Like Greece, the Mediterranean island’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. Both have attracted ever more Israeli holidaymakers in a reflection of their deepening political, economic and military alliance with the state but like destinations elsewhere have also seen the sector hammered by the pandemic.“When the world is in upheaval because of corona, the warm relations between our two countries are more important than ever,” Anastasiades said after holding talks with the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin. “The resumption of unrestricted free movement is of great importance to Cyprus, which is a tourism-dependent country.”
Mitsotakis’s proposal was initially met with scepticism by the EU amid fears it could be perceived as discriminatory. But in an indication that the idea may be gaining traction the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, said on Monday he believed coronavirus certificates might be “very much in the mix down the road”.
#Covid-19#migrant#migration#israel#chypre#grece#UE#circulation#frontiere#passeportsanitaire#tourisme#economie#sante