Greece, Romania aim for speedy bilateral travel arrangement

Romania and Greece are looking to set up a travel arrangement using their own vaccine certificates that would open up tourism between the two countries as soon as next month, officials said Friday.

At a press conference in Bucharest, Greek Tourism Minister Harry Theocharis said Greece is eager to receive Romanian tourists before the EU agrees on creating its own vaccination certificates.

“We really want the EU to step up the procedure to release that EU health certificate,” Theocharis said. “But until then we want to have discussions with the Romanian minister for tourism so that we can accept tourists even before reaching an agreement at a European level.”

Theocharis said Greece will look to accept vaccine certificates issued by Romania and that tourists from the Eastern European nation could start visiting as early as mid-April – a month before Greece’s official tourist season opens on May 14.

Romania’s Tourism Minister, Claudiu Nasui, said the government would take the final decision on the matter, “but this is the direction which we will be taking.”

Before the pandemic, more than a million Romanians visited Greece each year.

[AP]