(TAN): German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed for closing ski slopes across Europe as part of the fight against Covid-19, reported Deutsche Welle. The stand has been reportedly supported by the heads of Italy and France while Austria has summarily rejected the proposal. Switzerland, which is a non-EU member, has already opened its ski resorts that have started receiving a considerable footfall.
“The ski season is approaching,” she told lawmakers in the German Parliament, the Bundestag. “We will try to reach an agreement in Europe on whether we could close all ski resorts.” Merkel’s comments came shortly after Berlin extended Germany’s partial lockdown until December 20 as coronavirus deaths surpassed 15,000.
Many German and foreign holidaymakers flock to the southern Alpine state of Bavaria over the winter break to enjoy its pristine ski slopes. But Bavaria’s State Premier Markus Söder said to the media that the current situation does not permit for “classic ski holidays”.
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“I would prefer to have a common agreement on a European level: no ski lifts open, no (ski) holidays anywhere,” Söder said.
Berlin wants to keep Europeans from skiing until January 10. European ski resorts are widely believed to have been coronavirus hotspots, helping spread the contagion across the continent.
Germany’s skiing association DSV urged German politicians to reconsider their plans, pointing to hygiene and distancing measures that have been put in place in recent months.
“A Germany-wide or even a Europe-wide ban on skiing sports would definitely not be the solution, it would be the opposite — it would unnecessarily make the already difficult situation… even more difficult.” the association said in a letter, which was also endorsed by German snowboarders.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has already called for an EU-wide shutdown of the continent’s ski slopes at a time when Europeans would normally be heading off for their traditional winter break. “If Italy decided to shut down all its ski lifts without any support from France, Austria and the other countries, then Italian tourists would risk going abroad and taking the contagion back home,” he said in an interview earlier this week.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has also announced that his country’s ski resorts will stay closed until early next year, angering the Alpine tourist industry. Jean-Luc Boch, who leads the national association of mountain stations, known by its French acronym ANMSM, has called the announcement “a precipitous” one and said “it is very prejudicial for the economy of the Alps.”
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that skiing was part of his country’s “national identity”, discarding the idea of an EU-wide ban.
The shutdown would cost Austrian resorts up to EUR 2 billion (USD 2.4 billion), according to the country’s Finance Minister Gernot Blümel. The ski resorts of Austria are facing fire over the allegation of suppressing Covid-19 cases thereby spreading the virus across Europe earlier this year.
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Swiss ski resorts are also open, although police are enforcing anti-Covid measures such as wearing masks and social distancing.
Switzerland, which recently lifted quarantine requirements for people arriving from most of the continent, has recently seen enthusiasts flocking at the popular ski resort of Zermatt. The Swiss industry is hoping for a fresh influx of European tourists over upcoming holidays.
Meanwhile the EU suggested that the choice would be left to national governments. Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker said, “Obviously, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to gradual and science-based and effective lifting of the containment measures.”
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