Tuesday March 23, 2021
Island not on risk list
Laschet angry about Mallorca regulation
During the federal-state conference, the topic of Mallorca caused a lot of discussion. The decision to remove the island from the risk list annoys NRW state chief Laschet. The CDU politician sees this as “unequal treatment with German tourist resorts”.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Armin Laschet has massively criticized the federal government for removing Mallorca from the list of risk areas and lifting the travel warning. “Now is not the time to travel,” said Laschet early in the morning in Düsseldorf after almost twelve hours of federal-state consultations. Because cross-border travel in particular carries the risk that even more dangerous coronavirus variants than the British mutant could spread in Germany.
The lifting of the travel warning for Mallorca also led to many discussions in the federal-state talks, because “there is an unequal treatment here with German tourist resorts,” said the CDU federal chairman. You could have “saved yourself” that if you had waited until after Easter. But now many people would meet on Mallorca.
He expects the federal government to ensure that the airlines are obliged to test the Mallorca returnees before they take off from the island and that the vacationers will not bring the virus back to North Rhine-Westphalia. CDU Transport Minister Hendrik Wüst took precautions and spoke to the managing directors of the major NRW airports in order to “prepare modalities for tests even after landing,” said Laschet. “And they will do that too.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel had already announced that she would continuously monitor the situation on the island. One will look to see whether there are any risks of infection, said Merkel on the night after the federal-state consultations. “Overall, the fact that there are places to stay in Mallorca has made things difficult,” said Merkel. The legal situation is “tricky”. The Chancellor renewed the advice to the citizens that “you shouldn’t travel this year”.
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