The prime minister said, in an interview with Público newspaper, that he does not "overvalue" Germany having placed Portugal on the "red list" of travel, considering that "a doubt about the application of new rules" may be at stake.
In an interview with Público newspaper, released today, the head of Government highlighted that the Covid-19 digital certificate allows “to stabilize the circulation criteria within the Union”, but noted that “the regulation itself provides that any state can resort to a kind of handbrake for specific situations”.
“There is not a problem of tension”, he stressed in the interview, in which he took stock of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union, concluded last June 30th.
Pointing out that “Germany, for various reasons, has had a particularly restrictive and cautious policy in managing the pandemic, sometimes with reason, sometimes without it”, António Costa considered that the German attitude “may be just a doubt about the application of new rules” that countries are “all learning to apply”.
Therefore, he indicated, he does not value this situation “in excess”.
In the interview, the prime minister (who is in prophylactic isolation) also explained that the data “from the genomic sequencing indicated that the entry of the Delta variant in Portugal had not occurred through contacts with the United Kingdom, but through contact. directly with the population that came from the Hindustan region”.
According to Costa, “not by direct flights to Portugal”, but “through other European countries and other places”.
The prime minister also indicated that "it is not by chance that the Portuguese southern coast, the southern and eastern coast of Spain are the areas with the greatest intensity", pointing out that "in these regions there is a large population density originating in the Indonesian region. , who works in agriculture and also in tourism”.
António Costa also said that he spoke with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and that he tried to “convince her of the low gravity” of the Portuguese situation.
“I was just clarifying her about causality. It was clear from the geographic incidence of the new variant and the increase in cases, especially in the Lisbon region, that it had nothing to do with the Champions final in Porto”, he stressed.
Germany has classified Portugal as an area with “concern variants” regarding the pandemic, namely due to the spread of the Delta strain, which in practice results in a travel ban in place since last week due to the activation of the European Union's brake mechanism to deal with worrying situations.
That country only allows German citizens or those residing in that country to travel from Portugal, who still have to be subjected to a quarantine of 14 days after arrival.
The European Commission considered that the ban on non-essential travel to Portugal adopted by Germany is not "totally aligned" with what was recommended by Brussels and a source in the community executive told Lusa that it would be analyzed if the measure "is proportional".
The German ban on travel to Portugal is the only ban in the European Union when the covid-19 digital certificate comes into force.
Already on Thursday, Germany admitted a reduction in the assessment of Portugal, currently on the "red list" of travel as a "variant zone" of SARS-CoV-2, due to the also expected progression of the Delta variant in German territory .
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