The countries of Europe’s South urged on Monday the European Commission to include the tourism sector in its Recovery Fund, in an effort to salvage their tourism-dependent economies from collapsing due to the Coronavirus crisis.
Following a videoconference held on Monday, April 27, the Tourism Ministers of Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Bulgaria and Romania called on the EU’s Executive body to shape a “homogeneous” plan to tackle the financial impact of the virus’ outbreak.
In their joint statement, the nine countries called for “homogeneous rules for both air and sea or land mobility to guarantee a ‘safe and seamless travel’ in the European area.” They called for the recovery of transit and mobility and stressed that airlines should be given facilitated access to liquidity and passengers be given guarantees for their safety.
They also said that the EU should set up funds by the European Recovery Program, to enhance companies’ competitiveness under the new circumstances the pandemic creates.
The previous week, Thierry Breton, the Commissioner for Internal Market pledged to “reform and reinvent” the tourism sector, acknowledging that the latter will be the slowest to recover from the Coronavirus crisis.
Earlier in April, the Commission’s head Ursula von der Leyen had hinted at “smart solutions” that will enable summer vacations, provided that strict protective measures are in place.
“It is difficult to predict what the next months will be like, but what I see is that we are starting to learn to live with the virus,” von der Leyen had said, whilst praising the solutions that have already been found to keep some sectors of the economy fully functional, hoping that the same adaptation occurs in tourism and summer holidays.
