Why Romanians Will Avoid Greece from July 15 and Choose Turkey or Bulgaria

From July 15 all the tourists entering Greece, including Romanians, will have to show a negative real-time PCR test for COVID-19. It is not the first country to impose such a condition for Romanians or other nations, but Greece asks for the test to be taken during the last 72 hours. This is a compulsory condition for spending your long time desired vacation on the Greek beaches.

Romanians cannot fulfill this condition for technical reasons. It’s not about the cost for a real-time PCR test, which is around 60 Euros for each individual, but because in Romania all the real-time PCR centers release the results in 3 days, meaning 72 hours.

In other words, each of the COVID-19 PCR results issued by Romanian authorities is already inadequate for the Greek authorities at the moment the Romanian citizen gets it, as all of tests are taken 72 hours ago. Apart from that, one has to add the duration of the trip from Romania to Greece, on road or by plane, which takes at least half a day, let alone the time spent waiting in queue at the Greek border.

As a comparison, Austria imposed the same negative real-time PCR result for COVID-19 tests for Romanian citizens, but they ask for the results to be issued during the last 4 days and not for the tests to be taken during the last 72 hours. Thus, Romanian tourists have enough time to get to the Austrian border in 4 days from the issuing of the result if they want to travel to this country.

If this measure is kept by the Greek authorities, this summer Romanians will avoid Greece as nobody will be able to fulfill the conditions for entering the country. For sure, Romanian tourists will choose Turkey or Bulgaria, other popular destinations for them during summer, or they will stay at home.