site.btaBulgaria, Serbia and Greece Agree on Travel Without Quarantine

ESD 16:16:31 19-05-2020
MY1616ES.114
114 - ECONOMY - TRAVEL - BULGARIA - SERBIA - GREECE amplified

Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece
Agree on Travel
Without Quarantine


Sofia, May 19 (BTA) - Travel between Bulgaria and Greece will be without quarantine as of June 1. The decision was made at a video conference of the leaders of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Romania, and was announced Tuesday by Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. He said that the quarantine requirement for travel between Bulgaria and Serbia will also be scrapped as of June 1 but travellers will have to fill out bilateral declarations stating that they have no COVID-19 symptoms, are not quarantined in their own country, agree to travel at their own risk and leave a phone number for contact.

Borissov said that he hopes the Romanian Parliament will make a similar decision.

The quadrilateral video conference was held on Borissov's initiative and included also Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Prime Ministers Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece and Ludovic Orban of Romania. They discussed measures for easing travel and restoring tourist exchange without increasing the health risk for people.

The ministers of foreign and internal affairs, tourism, health care and transport also participated in the discussion.

The leaders of the four countries will meet in person in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna on June 1, said Borissov.

As he made public the decisions made at the meeting, Borissov said that Bulgaria has handled well the pandemic and is now among the first to ease the restrictions. "It is important to learn to observe the hygiene measures and to learn to live with the coronavirus and with a calculated risk, so that more systems resume operation and there is more money for people and the public purse," said the Bulgarian government leader.

Measures to be eased with Austria and Germany as well

Taking a reporter's question, Borissov said that talks are underway towards relaxing the measures with Germany and Austria. He said that their chambers of commerce are very active. Also, they have many factories in Bulgaria, which have ordered machines and they need engineers to come to assemble these machines, Borissov added. LN/