EU Open For Tourists Again And After Insulting The UK At Every Opportunity They Want Our Money.

Empty Spanish beach

Millions in EU27 face dire economic consequences if tourists don’t come for 2nd year running. There is £675bn of tourism GDP at stake and the Bastards want the Pound in your wallet and purse.

First, though let's look at The huge economic hit for many EU countries. Then we will look at the massive number of EU jobs at stake.

Covid has had serious consequences for every country and certain sectors have been particularly badly hit. One such sector is of course tourism. With people unable to travel except on essential business, and with the prospect of exorbitant costs of staying for two weeks in a quarantined hotel on return when they did travel, holiday plans for most people have been put on hold. At the time of writing it seems impossible to say what the situation will be in two weeks’ time, let alone when the summer rush abroad would normally begin in two months’ time.

This situation might be further complicated if the EU allows British tourists to enter, but keeps up its vitriol and its unreasonable treatment of UK businesses wishing to continue to trade with the EU.

The EU has been talking about the tourist question for weeks, with the Commission most recently recommending the easing on restrictions for inbound visitors from relatively safe countries. As things stand, however, their plans do not look very appealing for British holidaymakers. Currently, the UK is not on the EU’s list of seven nationalities from whom no vaccine passport is required.

These seven are.

• Australia
• Israel
• New Zealand
• Rwanda
• Singapore
• South Korea
• Thailand

Bizarrely, China — the originator of Coronavirus — is a supplementary to the list, “subject to confirmation of reciprocity”.

Rwanda is on the list but the most heavily vaccinated country in the world after Israel — the United Kingdom — is not on the list.

The EU Commission’s latest published recommendations for inbound tourism

“Member States should allow travel into the EU of those people who have received, at least 14 days before arrival, the last recommended dose of a vaccine having received marketing authorisation in the EU…

“This should be facilitated once the Digital Green Certificate becomes operational, in line with the rules the Commission proposed on 17 March. In particular, travellers should be able to prove their vaccination status with a Digital Green Certificate issued by Member States’ authorities on an individual basis, or with another certificate recognised as equivalent by virtue of a Commission adequacy decision.

“Until the Digital Green Certificate is operational, Member States should be able to accept certificates from non-EU countries based on national law, taking into account the ability to verify the authenticity, validity and integrity of the certificate and whether it contains all relevant data.”

- EU Commission statement, 06 May 2021

In other words, under the new EU plans it’s anyone’s guess which restrictions will apply in the case of a particular destination — having an EU ‘Digital Green Certificate’ (a ‘vaccine passport’) — or a negative PCR test within 14 days of travel, or something else.

For some EU countries, a second summer without tourists will be an economic disaster

Below is a list of the top five EU27 countries who gained most out of tourism expenditure, based on the latest data available from the EU Commission. This is purely what tourists spend during their stay, not the much larger effect on a country’s GDP as a whole.

How much do tourists spend in each country?

• France: £55.3 billion
• Spain: £51.0 billion
• Italy: £41.5 billion
• Germany: £34.1 billion
• Netherlands: £28.0 billion
• EU total: £675bn

The amount of EU GDP at stake

As stated above, tourism has a major impact on many EU27 economies, in addition to the expenditure by tourists during their stay. Below I show the latest figures for countries based on the tourism impact on their GDP

What tourism means to the GDP of EU countries

• Spain: £203.5 Billion
• Germany: £90.8 Billion
• Denmark: £76.7Billion
• Italy: £75.7 Billion
• Netherlands: £26.2 Billion
• EU27 total: £677.3 billion

Many EU countries have always been popular destinations for British people holidaying abroad. The information I have provided above, from official EU data, shows just how much money is at stake for the EU economies if it can’t get tourism started this summer.

The EU Commission has had a disastrous Covid. It has failed on almost every level, from its failure to come to the aid of Italy when its hospitals were overrun last year, to its lack of funding for vaccine research, to its time-wasting on a French vaccine which still hasn’t been produced, to its bureaucratic negotiations with successful vaccine suppliers, to its off-on / on-off approvals of vaccines, and to its current vindictive legal pursuit of Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca which is the only pharma company to have made its vaccines available at cost.

On top of this, the British people are rapidly realising that the EU is carrying out a vendetta against the United Kingdom for daring to leave its sclerotic club. The stories about the absurd checks being made on British goods at EU borders, whilst EU goods are simply waved through at UK borders, are all beginning to penetrate.

Could the EU be about to reap what it sows?

We are all, already hearing increasingly from people who now check the provenance of goods in the supermarket when they go shopping. If there is an alternative to an EU product, whether from the UK (preferably) or from the rest of the world, the EU product stays on the shelf. Perhaps this is why the latest ONS figures show a drop in imports from the EU and a rise in imports from the rest of the world.

Could this now extend to British people’s holiday plans? Putting aside the UK Government’s latest warning that Covid restrictions may not be removed on 17th June after all, the EU’s hostility towards the UK has become plain for all to see. Just as British pork is currently suffering far more EU inspections than pork from other ‘third countries, will British travellers also be subject to the same discrimination?

Now let's look at the surprising number of tourism jobs that are now at stake in the EU27.

The EU estimates over 16.5 million people are involved in tourism. That's 16.5 million EU jobs that are at risk if the British holiday pound holidays elsewhere.

How important is the tourism industry for jobs in each EU country?

Well as a taster to how important the tourist industry is to the EU, it's a fact that almost a quarter of Greek jobs are reliant on tourists arriving this summer.

Figures on numbers of people employed in the tourism industry or which are connected to the tourism industry differ, depending on which set of EU data you choose. Below I start by showing the numbers obtained from the EU statistical agency’s 2019 report on tourism. Please note that this data is incomplete as it only covers 15 of the 27 EU countries.

Jobs in some way dependent on tourism

These are are the top EU tourist destinations

• Italy : 4,206,857
• Germany : 2,919,106
• Spain : 2,425,300
• France : 1,336,692
• Netherlands: 791,000
• Portugal: 488,003

The total for the top 6 EU countries alone is 12.2 million jobs. For the EU27 as a whole, the EU estimates 16.5 million jobs are involved. 4.2 million jobs are at risk in Italy alone,

But what about the proportion of tourism jobs as a percentage of total employment?

The above does not tell the whole story, however, and in any case, it only includes 15 out of the 27 EU countries. A more interesting measure is the percentage of a country’s workforce engaged in tourism. This shows just how important tourism is to the livelihoods of people in some EU countries.

This data is not available in the EU’s 2019 tourism report, but I tracked down an official Eurostat paper from 2018, showing data relating to 2016. I do not believe the ratios will have changed significantly since then.

Percentage of the workforce (excluding the financial sector) involved in tourism

1. Greece : 23.9%
2. Cyprus : 20.3%
3. Malta : 15.3%
4. Ireland : 13.3%
5. Austria : 12.7%
6. Spain : 12.3%

As can be seen, almost one-quarter of all non-financial jobs in Greece is dependent on tourism. In Cyprus, it’s more than a fifth. Even in Ireland, almost one in seven jobs relies to a varying extent on its tourism industry.

I have to say this and it's something that many people in the UK are thinking about right at this moment.

Seeing as the EU are behaving so badly towards the UK, we’ll holiday in the UK or in a non-EU country, thank you very much. and who can blame us after witnessing what the French have been doing in British waters around Jersey and how the EU its self is acting over the Astra Zenica covid jab and how they have blatantly used Northern Ireland to split us apart along with how these countries like Spain and France are treating our British ex-pats

I seriously wonder if the fanatical ideologues in the EU Commission — to say nothing of some of the leaders of EU countries such as Monsieur Macron — have any idea of what they are risking. The British people are generally tolerant and slow to anger. I sense a growing feeling of anger amongst the British people against the EU’s bullying, unreasonable, and vindictive behaviour towards the United Kingdom.

The EU’s vindictive behaviour crosses all areas, from its absurd insistence that despite almost all UK standards and laws still being identical to those of the EU, it will make life as tough as possible for UK exporters, to its legal action against the UK for trying to keep the United Kingdom as a whole country, to its refusal to grant ‘equivalence’ to the UK’s important financial sector despite the UK having done this unilaterally for the EU last November.

This was always going to happen when you have unelected fanatics in charge

There can now be no doubt whatsoever that what was predicted since we voted to leave in 2016 — that the EU would never agree on a reasonable deal resulting in friendly relations — has come to pass.

This EU Commission is on the ropes. Its performance in key areas has been abysmal and its focus on the priorities it deems important are very clearly out of place given the immediate challenges it faces.

As for tourism and the EU jobs dependent on this, do I think the EU Commission gives a hoot? No, I do not. The Berlaymont building in Brussels is now run by zealots intent on punishing the United Kingdom for daring to break free. The interests of its own citizens whose jobs are on the line are way down the priority list.

If the EU wishes to make the Europe-loving British public think again about their holiday plans (and their purchasing preferences in the shops in the UK), then they are going the right way about it.

I love Europe and its peoples. However, I dislike the EU intensely, We British had the guts to kick the EU into touch and the EU did not like it one little bit, and as much as I like the EU citizens I see no reason to take a holiday in France, Spain, Portugal or any other EU country while the EU acts in the manner they do towards us. I see no reason at all to spend hard-earned pounds changed into Euros to feed the families of EU citizens. Their choice to stay in the EU our choice to leave. If they all lose money from lost revenue because Brits choose to holiday in other countries outside the EU or stay and holiday their own country, then they can blame the European Union and I won't lose one wink of sleep over it.

Sources: Official EU Commission reports