‘Whoever enters Portugal should test negative’, defends local MP as tourism floodgates reopen

Cristóvão Norte, an Algarvian MP for the Social Democratic Party (PSD) has defended that "there must be foreign tourism" to avoid unemployment and "many bankruptcies". However, in doing so, he also highlighted that it is essential to defend the Portuguese public from the spread of the virus, and thus it must be weighed more heavily in the debate.

After the speech of the Minister of State and Economy, Pedro Siza Vieira, yesterday, Tuesday, June 2, Norte defended that "there are sectors of activity in which mere recovery can be talked about, but others must be talked in terms of salvation.”

“Tourism, and what is associated with it, is one of those cases, particularly in regions such as the Algarve and Madeira, both of which are heavily dependent on foreign tourism. For there to be no economic and social earthquake, with greater job losses and bankruptcies, there must be external tourism”. But Norte proposed a condition for this to be possible, in time to save what is possible of this summer, namely: “a country or region with incidence of residual COVID -19, that has defined aerial accessibility in a timely manner, and that, establishes the obligation of whoever enters must come with a certificate showing a negative COVID-19 test“.

“This point is vital, because only in this way is confidence given to those who come, to those who are here, to prevent uncontrolled sanitary conditions and to strengthen tourism conditions. This is the best way to have tourism in large quantities with minimal risk to health. Otherwise, we can endanger what has been done so well,” he said. According to the parliamentarian, the State should invest in this objective, reimbursing those who bear this cost, considering that this would be a smaller investment for essential gains to safeguard tourism companies and jobs.

The deputy also urged that a specific response program be created for tourism and for more economically deprived regions, which should address, among other things, the end of added value in local accommodation, the revision of prohibitions that do not make sense in areas such as restoration and tourist entertainment, as well as the widening of the simplified layoff, so that the companies of the sector can subsist until they return to recover, predictably until Easter of 2021.

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