Covid-19: Spain urges the European Union to implement the digital certificate
Covid-19 and tourism: Spain urges the European Union to implement the digital certificate in order to promote tourism in the UE.
The Spanish Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, has participated together with the rest of the Tourism Ministers of the European Union in the High Level Forum for Sustainable Tourism convened by the Portuguese presidency online with the aim of proposing contributions from Member States in the elaboration of the European Tourism Agenda 2030-2050.
At the meeting, the minister recalled that it is urgent to launch the Digital Green Certificate to be able to restart trips safely and, with that, reactivate tourism.
“Spain asks the tourism ministers to support its proposal to speed up the use of the certificate to generate confidence in travel within the European Union (EU) and avoid unilateral decisions by some countries that already want to open their destinations. The EU has to give a coordinated response with common mobility protocols “, has influenced Reyes Maroto.
The minister considers that “the development of the certificate is good news, and has highlighted the broad consensus that has been registered to date among the Member States, and the speed with which it is being developed, since its announcement two months ago by the President of the Commission “.
Maroto informed his counterparts that Spain is “about to start the pilot tests of the certificate.”
The Minister of Tourism has also urged to make more flexible recommendation 912 of the Council of the EU on restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries. Thus, he hopes that on May 20, tourism trips between the European Union and third countries will be allowed to resume, eliminating restrictions on them depending on the epidemiological situation or the progress of the vaccination process in the countries of origin of travelers. “It is necessary to achieve unity of action in the progressive opening of international mobility to generate credibility and trust in all European citizens and in travelers from third countries”, added Maroto.
The minister has defended that it is necessary to address a transformation and modernization of our tourism model towards a more sustainable, digital, quality and inclusive model.
An ambitious plan
“Spain is going to mobilize 3,400 million euros in public investments through the Modernization and Competitiveness Plan for the tourism sector, which aims for Spain to continue to be the most competitive country in the world in this sector. It is one of the 20 driving programs of investment included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan that we have sent to Brussels “.
Maroto ended with a message of hope: “Tourism will be strengthened after this pandemic. And we must work together to accelerate the changes that travelers demand. The first to guarantee safe travel, the second to reduce the environmental impact of tourism and the third to promote digitization. The EU Tourism Agenda 2030/2050 is an opportunity to define the tourism of the future. ”
