INPRECOR

Greece has dropped quarantine requirements and announced it will now welcome tourists who have been vaccinated against covid-19 or have a negative PCR test performed up to 72 hours before travel.

Greece’s Tourism Minister Harry Theoharis told CNN on Monday that the country “is taking the first steps, which are the beginning of a gradual opening process leading to a full opening of tourism on May 14.

Under the new rules, Greece is willing to receive vaccinated or covid-tested tourists from the most relevant markets for the country, which includes countries in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Israel, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Direct international flights are now allowed in cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki, on the east coast, in addition to the islands that are the most popular holiday destinations, such as Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Mykonos, Santorini or Corfu.

Greek authorities have assured that the country’s entry points are able to do quick checks on tourists and that there will be hotels ready to accommodate those who tested positive during the process and need to be quarantined. But tourists are subject to the same rules as locals: wearing masks and social distancing rules, in addition to the restrictions still in place at bars and restaurants in beach areas, such as only serving food to eat out.

The city of Athens has strongly campaigned for the introduction of covid-19 vaccine passports to encourage travel from across the European Union, with Greece holding negotiations with non-EU countries to try to establish travel corridors.

Already in March last year Greece was one of the main European destinations to open up to tourism before the summer, in particular to travellers from the United States, and, as CNN reminds us, the country has an economy heavily dependent on the sector, which provides 20% of GDP and 25% of total employment.

The lifting of restrictions in Greece is seen internally as a promise of the country opening fully to tourism in May, although in the awareness that the start will be slow and will depend on uncertain conditions involving other countries.

Greece has not been among the countries where vaccination is most accelerated and at the moment less than 10% of the population has received the first dose against the new coronavirus.

The vaccination plan in Greece started with the smaller islands, with less than a thousand inhabitants – also with the aim of the country having specific covid-free zones. On these smaller islands, the entire population has received the full two doses and the campaign is evolving to the larger islands, with the volume of vaccines expected to be boosted next month and many restrictions that are still in place to be lifted by May 14.

Few digital nomads who choose Greece as their new home will, from next year, benefit from a new tax incentive.

It’s a 50% reduction in income tax, a measure aimed at attracting talent to Greece who, through technology, choose to work remotely, without depending on a fixed headquarters.

This was the path that French Charlotte, chose about a month ago. She decided to move to Greece for at least a year while running a few well-known sites for the French public, including a site specializing in sexe amateur content.

She arrived before she knew about this news about digital nomads in Greece, but as soon as she heard about it, she decided to invite other French friends to do the same.

The question is raised in a promotional document that is part of the legislative initiative that was discussed, voted and approved, on Wednesday, by the Greek Parliament.

As of January 2021, a new tax regime will be available for digital nomads arriving in Greece (both employees and self-employed), which will allow them to pay only half of the taxes due on their income over the next seven years.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government hopes that this tax relief will attract more digital nomads to the country, but also some of the Greeks who were forced to emigrate during the years of the financial crisis. According to the proposal presented in November by the Greek Executive – quoted by Ekathimerini – there is no income ceiling or discrimination by type of work in accessing the tax relief in question, the only criterion being the establishment of Greece as a tax residence.

With this goal in mind, there is a willingness to study initiatives to increase the potential for hosting remote workers in the country, for example through a national network of coworking spaces. And changes in the tax plan may also be being considered, namely regarding the concept of tax residence, which today is difficult to apply to these talents.

A digital nomad is someone who does not depend on “a certain place”, working “based on smart mobile devices, broadband and fast internet access and access to cloud computing data”.

Death awaited Greek investigatory reporter Yorgos Karaivaz before his residence in the suburb of Alimos, on the borders of Athens.

At around 2.30 p.m. on 9 April, thus numerous various other Fridays after the program of the program Truths with Zina on the exclusive Star TV network, Karaivaz, 52, born in Drama (northeast Greece), parked in a park near his residence, uninformed that this time his end was near.

His murderer had actually come to the scene seven mins previously on a scooter driven by another man, took out a 9 mm gun with a silencer (unregistered) as well as implemented him in cold blood from the automobile. 6 bullets hit the sufferer’s upper body, 2 in the head, one in the neck as well as one in the left hand.

According to the autopsy, the shots to the head went to point-blank range, the last ones, and the foe completed him off on the asphalt where at least 13 shell housings were discovered. Only one community employee that was in the park experienced the scene. “It all took place in less than 15 seconds,” he told ANT1.

It is not known if his better half and also son were at the residence and also if they were also aware of what was taking place, however, a safety electronic camera tape-recorded the arrival of the motorcyclists, one using headgear and also the other a mask, headscarf and also woolen hat.

The decrease of press flexibility

A week later on, these are the only known facts available to the Greek authorities, in addition to the assurance that it was definitely the job of “experts”.

Cold, computed (someone would have warned the attackers when the reporter left the terminal), without any obvious intention (Karaivaz never ever requested for security, reported hazards, or requested for a gun license) as well as no ideas.

Unless one considers, therefore, the speculation reported by the French weekly Marianne and also the Belgian press concerning 2 recent examinations performed by Karaivaz: the first, a peculiar system including designs, actually call girls, where a renowned TELEVISION star was doing favors for important political and also economic numbers; and a 2nd investigation into the friendship with the top echelons of the previous supervisor of the National Theatre, Dimitris Lignadis, implicated of sexual assault, which nearly cost the Minister of Culture her job.

Currently, it appears like a practically perfect crime, one of those instances that could have starred the commissioner Kostas Jaritos of the famous Greek crime novelist Petros Markaris or can have been informed by Kavairaz himself on his television network, among the most prominent in the country for the detractions it has actually discovered, and also which has the cops, according to the everyday Kathimerini, thoroughly exploring his computer system, his bullet-riddled cellphone and his blog (bloko.org), which focuses on the mafias that control Athens nightlife.

Greece declared before the end of 2019, that the 3 biggest migrant camps situated in the Aegean Sea, more exactly on the islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios, will be supplanted by closed structures that will significantly increase their capacity. The date for the conclusion was not determined yet, however this substitution is a top priority right now, in order to decongest these islands in terms of population, as pointed out recently in a press conference held by the special mandatory for migration of the Greek government.

The vast majority of the newcomers are either from Afghanistan or Syria, landing through Turkey and making refuge applications for the European Union while there. They are stranded in camps on the islands while trusting that the Greek government will analyse and process their application, a procedure that normally takes quite a while.

Some facts:

• As of now, about 32,000 individuals live in hopeless conditions in the five camps where migrants have been registered, mostly in the islands of Chios, Lesbo, Cós, Leros, and Samos, which theoretically have a limit of around 6,200 individuals. 
• Over the past 4 months 40,000 people have landed in Greece, according to the Ministry of Citizen Protection
• Just last weekend, the Greek Coast Guard, identified 1,350 individuals that have arrived across the 5 Aegean islands.

The recent influx of migrants worsened the conditions of the camps which were already in a point considered as terrible. Several refugee and migrant rights organizations and the Council of Europe have been condemning the current status and conditions seen in those overcrowded camps. Dunja Mijatović, Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, published a recent report where it points to a ‘hazardous circumstance’ in the 3 camps of Lesbos, Corinth and Samos. He specifically points out: “There is a frantic absence of medicinal consideration and wellbeing administrations in the packed camps that I visited. Individuals line for a considerable length of time to get nourishment and go to the latrine, and that is the point at which these offices exist”, in an effort to appeal for the necessity of improving the life conditions in those facilities and the urgent need for their asylum transfer out of the islands.

There will be a significant difference when comparing to the actual 3 overloaded biggest camps located in the Aegan Sea as the projected new camps will be closed facilities that will identify all asylum seekers for identification, verification of their status and in the end to decide if they could be relocated or in the other hand returned to Turkey. This is somehow different from what is happening today as the migrants are allowed to enter and leave freely on the islands.

The 2 other asylum camps, in the islands of Leros and Cós are in less dramatic conditions and instead of the replacement, will be refurbished and expanded.