Slovenia to decide on possible restrictions on arrivals from Croatia

Ljubljana, Slovenia

ZAGREB, Aug 17 (Hina) – Possible restrictions on arrivals from Croatia will be on the agenda of Slovenia’s government next Thursday, the government’s spokesman, Jelko Kacin, told the national radio on Sunday evening.

Kacin explained that the government would wait until Tuesday to see the results of tests made on Monday, after this weekend, “and if there are no changes in the work on nightclubs (in Croatia), we will must respond in some way, to restrict the import of infections.”

In this scenario, the government will make appropriate decisions on Thursday taking into account the recommendations proposed by epidemiologists.

This past Thursday, Croatia decided that nightclubs and bars would be allowed to serve customers until midnight.

Kacin said on Sunday that nightclubs in Croatia seemed the biggest source of the imported cases of the COVID-19 infections in Slovenia.

For instance, on Saturday out of the 15 new cases of the infection, eight were imported by returning holidaymakers from Croatia, according to Kacin’s explanation.

One of plans of Slovenian epidemiologists is to impose the obligatory 14-days self-isolation for Slovenian tourists aged 15-35 years upon their return from Croatia.

Also, Slovenia is considering the introduction of a differentiated approach due to a different epidemiological situation across Croatian counties.

Minister says is not concerned over continuation of tourist season

Croatia’s Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who is at the helm of the national COVID response team, said on Sunday that he had no concerns over the continuation of the tourist season following travel warnings from some countries.

“I am not concerned over the remainder of the tourist season. There are currently 760,000 tourists in Croatia. In the course of the day, tens of thousands from EU member-states have entered Croatia,” Bozinovic told the NOVA TV commercial broadcaster on Sunday evening.

A few days ago Italy and Austria decided to add Croatia to their lists of high risk COVID countries.

The Croatian minister admitted that it would have been better, if such decisions had not been made, however, he added that Croatia would continue doing its best to make sure that the struggle against the coronavirus infection is efficient and that the tourist postseason is good.

Bozinovic says every country makes decisions it deems appropriate.

Since the start of the tourist season, there has existed some kind of contraposition of interests: on one hand, countries do not want their nationals to travel abroad and there spend their money, and on the other hand tourist destinations such as Croatia would like to attract as many guests as possible.

He said that there were some indications that tourists would continue visiting Croatia.

Asked whether Croatia would respond to Austria after it imposed the obligatory tests for arrivals from our country, Bozinovic said that “Croatia does not think that way.”

“We are focused primarily on our interests.”

We are trying to use our potentials and capacities to make sure that the favourable developments continue, the minister said.