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HEALTH

Have your say: Americans – will you travel to Italy if a vaccine passport is required?

After more than a year of being largely barred from Europe, Americans could be able to visit this summer using a "health pass". Will you be among them? Let us know your plans.

Published: 4 May 2021 14:17 CEST
Have your say: Americans - will you travel to Italy if a vaccine passport is required?
Italy has already begun implementing health passes for domestic travel. Photo: Piero Cruciatti/AFP

Since March 2020 most travel from the USA to Italy has been impossible. But that could soon change, as Italian authorities are considering how and when to allow non-essential travel..

So far, it looks likely that visitors who have been vaccinated will be allowed to travel to Italy using a “health pass”, including from non-EU countries.

The European Commission this week suggested opening the external European borders to vaccinated non-EU travellers – although the final decision on this will be down to each individual member state.

While details of how the pass would work, it is likely to require proof of a certificate of full vaccination, or potentially also a recent negative Covid test.

READ ALSO: How will the EU’s ‘Covid passport’ system work for tourists in Europe?

We’d like to know how our American readers feel about this requirement – and whether they feel it’s safe to visit Italy this summer.

Member comments

  1. Trying hard to keep our reservations in Italy this summer but if some announcement about dates to open doesn’t come soon, we will have to cancel and go to Greece, Spain, UK or somewhere else, we can’t wait forever.

  2. I agree with Angela. We have our airline reservations, tickets and hotels booked for mid-June.
    If something does not happen soon, we will have to change our reservations and wedding plans and go to
    Greece or another country this summer. Very mixed messages from Italy and no details on this supposed green pass.
    Just speak plainly about what Americans must do to get this supposed pass and arrive in Italy and when this can happen. Nebulous words about a green pass in the future are worthless.

  3. I have airline reservations booked for mid-July. I hope that by mid-June Italy will be open to Americans who are vaccinated and who wish to travel. I will travel for work (I am an Italy Travel Specialist with 30 years in the business). I will also be visiting friends and family in Italy who I have not seen since autumn 2019. I hope that the Italian Government gives us tangible instructions on what paperwork and/or “pass” we need prior to boarding the flight. I believe that Americans should be able to travel to the EU having been fully vaccinated and with the proper credentials. Likewise, I believe that members of the EU who wish to travel to the United States should be able to travel to this country provided that they also are vaccinated with valid passport, etc. In addition the CDC needs to be more cooperative with regard to their “advisory levels” without being political. I hope that they are working with the EU to come to some sort of agreement on this so that the borders can open and we all can get back to some sort of normalcy during these very “un-normal” times.

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

Published: 26 March 2024 09:55 CET
German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of €420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of €2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some €200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of €2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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