I wanted to buy a new toilet bowl brush in Greece. Then this happened.
Fear not, the European Union bureaucracy always stands ready to address a crisis with...more bureaucracy!
If you thought being turned away from the Sistine Chapel for not wearing long pants was humiliating (come on, it’s happened to all of us), try being tossed from a Greek housewares store just for wanting to keep your toilet bowl tidy!
Yes, there are far greater indignations to suffer in this miserable century than being told you’re not qualified to buy a toilet brush, but this one goes beyond fleeting peccadillo as it has broad implications for the multi-billion dollar tourism industry in Europe. Ursula von der Leyen, the esteemed head of the European Commission who spearheaded the Old Continent’s famously botched Covid-19 vaccination rollout, might want to steal a few moments away from the hairdresser for this one.
The state of affairs in Greece
While Greek tourism is still mainly a warm-weather affair, it does happen that people come to soak up some Grecian sunshine in the off months. Beach season is over and done, but my recent flight from Stockholm to Athens on the excellent Aegean airlines was packed with pale-faced, sun-hungry Swedes. Despite the pandemic which continues to “show its teeth” as one Greek newspaper put it, buses in the capital are packed with masked passengers, holiday anticipation is the air for those who care about holidays, cafes are crowded, Athens is crackling with activity.
But currently access to many places is restricted if proof of vaccination cannot be shown. Customers seeking access to banks, public services, retail shops, restaurants (including outdoor cafes), entertainment facilities, and hair salons are required to present a COVID-19 vaccination certificate or documentation of recovery from COVID-19, and for most Europeans that will mean showing an EU Digital Covid Certificate, which is something official that apparently you flash on your phone (which, incidentally, is not) to get in…or not.
Because if you’re not a citizen of the European Union, you won’t have the EU’s new little digital doohickey on your smartphone, will you? Nope. And I can’t speak for Mexico or Barbados, but according to U.S. Embassy, a “CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card Is Acceptable Proof of Vaccination.”
Which works out fine, except for when it doesn’t. Enter the toilet brush—or rather, the one I wasn’t able to purchase because a small shop in the central Athens neighborhood of Pagrati refused to accept my CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card—even though I had commandeered a Greek friend to patch over any translation issues. And even though I had, at the Embassy’s express recommendation, also shown, in order to not “encounter any difficulty,” a “printout of the Greek Ministry of Development and Investment press release that points out to the consumer public and to catering, entertainment and retail companies that according to par. 2 of article 9 of JMD D1a / GP.oik.69136 (B ‘5138) “Emergency public health protection measures against the risk of further spread of the coronavirus COVID-19” that the entry and service of foreign customers holding a certificate of vaccination or recent illness from a country outside the European Union is allowed by simply showing the paper vaccination certificate and showing a document of identity (passport), without requiring the application of COVID Free with GR.”
Ambiguity is a turn-off for tourists.
So, yeah, so much for not “encountering any difficulty with businesses hesitant to accept the CDC card or other U.S. proof of vaccination”!
Happily, Upon presentation of the exact same documents at another shop nearby I was granted entry with zero problems, and even found a cooler toilet brush at a better price. I didn’t even mind that it was made in Turkey (yes, I check these things). Later I similarly found a comfortable perch at this iconic Athenian cafe, again with no problems. And if I had tried entering a less iconic, less internationally-oriented spot across the way? Who knows…
Earth to Ursula! You cannot just digitize your way out of every problem and farm out every crisis to a bunch of computers. Citizens are not robots. Furthermore there are way too many characters in the European patchwork for this to work out like the lazy Eurocrats would like it to—just look at Sweden, which took an iconoclastic approach to the pandemic, despite its membership in the E.U. (and btw, no Euros there, if you please). No digital Covid passport required for anything, except for maybe an indoor football game which no reader of this Column would be going to anyway. No one’s wearing a mask up there either, for that matter, although of course new regulations could still be on the table.
Anyway, imagine if and when hundreds of thousands of British and Americans once again descend upon the Plaka or boutiques of Mykonos and have to endure the hassle and yes, small indignity of not only having to whip out their passports and vax cards to buy a Balenciaga or one of those phallus keychains but also a printed press release in Greek that a shopkeeper may but may not accept. Not all, but certainly many such tourists will take their business elsewhere. They may even, hearing about such accounts, decide to skip Europe altogether until it gets its house in order. And Greece will not be to blame for this chaotic state of affairs. Brussels will.