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Cyprus’ decision to allow vaccinated Britons into the country before the rest of the EU was prompted by the bloc’s reluctance to take a decisive stance on Covid-19 immunity certificates, a tourism minister said.
Explaining why the country had broken ranks with other EU members by deciding to admit Britons with the May 1 certificate, Savvas Perdios told The Guardian that visitors, tourists and the travel industry “needed clarity”, that the step sought to provide.
“We felt we had to announce it because we don’t know when an agreement will be reached at the European level,” Perdios said. “For the people who will be traveling here, we wanted to give them the assurance that Cyprus will be ready to receive them. Travel planning requires certainty. “
The move, unveiled late Thursday, came as the bloc was struggling to forge a united front on “vaccine passports” first proposed by Greece in January. Tourism-dependent countries in the southeastern strip of Europe seem increasingly willing to act independently as they desperately seek to save industries hit by the pandemic.
Cyprus Crown Cases
Cyprus derives 13% of its national income from tourism and 10% of its workforce is employed in the sector.
Before the pandemic, the British far outnumbered all other arrivals to the former British colony, ethnically divided between Greeks in the south and Turks in the north since 1974.
An estimated 1.3 million UK tourists visited the south in 2019, almost double the local population. As in Greece, which had attracted record numbers before the pandemic but suffered a massive drop last year, tourism in Cyprus was hit in 2020.
In February, Nicosia and Athens reached an agreement with Israel that allows citizens with Covid-19 vaccination certificates to travel unhindered between the three countries. The agreement is expected to go into effect later this month.
Perdios said the Anglo Cypriot teams were already in talks to discuss the details of how the vaccine passports would work as part of a similar bilateral agreement with the United Kingdom.
“It is a matter of technicalities what the certificate will look like. We will have more meetings in the coming days and weeks to finalize everything, ”he said, emphasizing that the Greek Cypriot authorities were prepared to be flexible about the format that the document would eventually take. “We will use whatever the UK government wants us to use. It is the UK that will decide if the certificate will be digital or if it will be a certificate from a GP … We will not ask to have a vaccine certificate based on our design ”
Reserves for the island have increased since Boris Johnson announced his government’s roadmap out of England’s third national blockade.
Although May 17 was set as the earliest possible date for the resumption of international travel by the British leader, Perdios said that Nicosia had also decided to include the United Kingdom in quarantine-free travel starting next month. Since the emergence of Covid-19 variants, all non-essential travel outside of the UK has been banned, with rare exceptions.
But with the Greek Cypriot authorities aware of the island’s large British expat community, Perdios said anyone arriving from the UK as of April 1. a special waiver would be granted in line with the recently lifted restrictions for those entering from the EU. This week, the island began accepting travelers according to a country categorization system with color codes that define the number of epidemiological cases in each member state.
“It doesn’t matter in which category [Britain] Now, people flying from the UK will not be quarantined unless they test positive and have to be placed in isolation. We basically guarantee non-quarantine travel from the UK from 1 April, ”he said. “What goes into effect besides that on May 1? is that those who have a vaccination certificate will be provided so that they do not have to take a test as well ”.
Cyprus has said that inoculated visitors must have received two punctures, both approved by the European Medicines Agency.
Tourists who contract the virus in the country will continue to be covered by the Cypriot government, and the state will bear “all costs” for them and their dependents in a repeat of a plan started last year.
“But we’re not just opening up to vaccinated travelers,” Perdios added. “Anyone will be able to travel here, certificate or not, and of course the date of travel depends on the UK government and when it decides to allow outbound travel.”
