A journalist writing for the German publication Suddeutsche Zeitung has criticised the Austrian prime minister and the Austrian authorities for their attitude towards Croatia in the coronavirus era.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 31st of August, 2020, the Republic of Croatia has unfortunately found itself placed on the red lists of numerous European countries as an epidemiologically insecure country, and as such has been the subject of many media outlets in our neighboring countries over recent days – which is not surprising, because Croatia ”reddened” in August, in the heart of the tourist season when the country still had a very large number of tourists within its borders.
For example, Kvarner almost reached 100 percent of last year’s figures. But non-compliance with anti-epidemic measures and an increase in the number of people infected with the new coronavirus has led to reactions from countries with large numbers of tourists; Austria and Slovenia put the whole of Croatia on its red list, Germany put ”only” two Dalmatian counties with the largest increase in newly infected people on its red list… All together, this move resulted in a large number of tourists going home overnight, which meant crowds at the borders and at airports.
Over recent days, the chairman of the Supervisory Board and the co-owner of Valamar, the largest tourist group in Croatia, Gustav Wurmböck, criticised the Austrian Government’s decision in an Austrian weekly called Profil, pointing out that the Austrian authorities failed to ask anyone about the situation in Croatia’s numerous hotels and camps.
”Nobody has been infected in any of Valamar’s facilities,” he said, adding that the sector had previously called for hotbeds such as nightclubs to be regulated.
The new regime was also commented on by Austrian journalist Felix Haselsteiner in his column for the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. He was actually among the tourists who had to return home due to the new measures. In the article ”The virus in the car”, he also asked the question of whether Austria’s move was necessary at all. Namely, he criticised the policy of the Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz towards Croatia. Kurz stated that the virus was ”coming to Austria by car”, and suggesting that this was due to Austrian returnees from Croatia. The journalist said that the Austrian Prime Minister thus denied the reality that the virus had been in Austria since March and that it had no intention of leaving, adding that Croatia had been demonised as a party destination, which wasn’t removely true, and that Austrians traditionally come to Croatia to camp.
The return of the virus
“Croatia gets a quarter of its GDP from tourism and they couldn’t afford to just cancel the summer season, so they were one of the first countries in Europe to open up to tourists. The virus returned to Croatia as the tourists did. So, to continue with Kurz’s metaphor, coronavirus travelled by car for the holidays and then it returned,” said the journalist from the Suddeutsche Zeitung. The author also pointed out that it would be better if Austria, like Germany, put certain regions on its red list, which would be a real European solution, and that in that case Austria could play a crucial role in the European response to the pandemic. The columnist for Suddeutsche Zeitung believes that revenge will be carried out in some way or another, particularly because many Croats go to Austria to ski.
He also discussed the experiences of some tourists who were more than satisfied with the adherence to the measures in Croatia.
The German RTL also reported on the experiences of a group of German tourists returning home from Croatia. They remind that on August the 20th, the Robert Koch Institute declared the Croatian counties of Sibenik-Knin and Split-Dalmatia as risky areas. However, tourists said that Croatia was “an idyll without traces of the COVID pandemic”.
For all tourists, however, the infuriating issue was the sudden departure home on the orders of a higher political force that didn’t sit well with anyone whatsoever. In addition, many tourists had to isolate themselves or have had to be tested for the virus in the last two weeks at their own expense, Novi list writes.
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