EU sets out guidelines for tourism resumption, cross-border travels

The European Commission has set out guidelines to allow the resumption of tourism in the coming months in spite of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to documents seen by Reuters on Wednesday, the EU executive also wants EU governments to take into account personal considerations to allow people to visit family and loved ones who live in different countries in the EU.

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The commission noted that the reason for the resumption of tourism would be for the people to be able to stay in hotels, eat in restaurants or go to beaches safely.

Report says that the commission is also proposing that its restrictions on non-essential travels to the 26-nation Schengen zone should be extended by 30 days to June 15.

The countries would be advised to open borders to countries with similar coronavirus risk profiles under a plan to bolster the ailing tourist industry being discussed in Brussels.

“Restrictions on travels should first be lifted in areas with a comparable epidemiological situation.

“Particularly, where sufficient capabilities are in place in terms of hospitals, testing, surveillance and contact tracing capacities,” the document said.

The EU executive has previously voiced unease about “tourism corridors”, whereby member states make bilateral deals to open to each other’s tourists, but now appears ready to accept such arrangements in practice.

The EU includes some of the countries worst hit by the pandemic, notably Spain and Italy, along with others such as Greece and the Czech Republic that have so far limited its impact.

Officials are scrambling to rescue Europe’s tourism industry, which accounts for 10 per cent of EU economic output, more in Italy, Spain, Croatia and Greece.

Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz announced recently that he intended to open the borders to visitors from safe countries, such as Germany and the Czech Republic as part of efforts to protect the Alpine state’s tourism industry.

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia will reopen their borders to each other from May 15, creating a Baltic “travel bubble”.

“We showed a good example by statingvery clearly that only countries which successfully dealt with the situation can open themselves up,” Lithuania’s Prime Minister, Saulius Skvernelis, noted.