Marín has identified tourism as "an economic engine in both communities"
The vice-presidents of Andalusia and the Community of Madrid, Juan Marín and Ignacio Aguado, have advocated this Friday that Spain should join the implementation of the so-called COVID passport to promote tourist mobility.
Aguado said that "we cannot be late again in defending the COVID passport" after considering that the government has been "dragging its feet in the management of this pandemic" and invoking, in reference to Spain, that "we are the second world destination".
"With similar points of view Madrid and Andalusia, let's move this proposal to lead the COVID passport in Europe," Aguado said.
The Vice-President of Madrid argued that "mobility is essential to recover the pulse and generate investment and wealth", and therefore urged that "it should be guaranteed that immunised people can move around".
Juan Marín and Ignacio Aguado, both representatives of Ciudadanos in coalition governments with the Partido Popular, held a meeting this Friday in Seville which they justified by the fact of working in a coordinated way because both communities have "15 million inhabitants and represent 30% of the country's GDP", in the words of the vice-president of Madrid.
"The world does not stand still".
Aguado has argued that Andalusia and the Community of Madrid "share a common goal of recovering tourism in order to recover tourist and economic activity as soon as possible", a common goal that he has extended to the fact that "we agree that recovery has to do with the recovery of mobility".
The vice-president, councillor and spokesperson for the Community of Madrid stated that "the debate is opening up that people who are fully vaccinated can move around the national territory", a reasoning that has led him to use the example of various countries, including Denmark, Iceland and Greece, to warn that "the world is not standing still", which is why he has urged "combining health measures with economic measures to prevent the economy from continuing to fall and ruin".
"We cannot manage the pandemic with the tools of the first wave", said Aguado, who appealed to the fact that "we have learned a lot" to convey that "thanks to vaccines, tests, and less restrictions, as liberals as we are, we are working to lift the restrictions as soon as possible".
"We respect that it is up to the health experts to decide what should be done," argued the vice-president of the Community of Madrid, who went on to explain that "from a political point of view we are working to try to get the restrictions lifted as soon as possible and return to travelling in the most natural way possible".
Giving an ear to the demands of the communities
Juan Marín has demanded this Friday that the Government "must listen" to the demands of the autonomous communities in areas such as tourism, a claim to which he has added his reproach for "the lack of leadership that is conspicuous by its absence", and his regret for "the unknown of what will happen with Easter Week".
In his informative appearance, Marín called for "the reactivation of a sector that generates employment in two sister communities such as Madrid and Andalusia" and demanded "tools to kick-start economic activity".
The vice-president of the Junta, who identified tourism as "an economic engine in both communities", demanded measures to make tourism a sector "capable of recovering and generating employment".
In the list of reproaches that Juan Marín has launched at the Government for the lack of initiatives to relaunch the activity, he has included that "the Government does not consider lowering VAT in the tourism sector when competing countries are doing so", a request that he has demanded to extend until the end of 2022; "the bond to promote tourism", regarding which he recalled that in the Junta de Andalucía "we have launched it with our own resources"; to which he added other initiatives such as "international insurance so that any traveller who comes has the security that if something happens they will have their needs covered".
"The government is late with the health passport, which is fundamental and key at this time for the free movement of immunised citizens", said the vice-president of the Junta and regional minister.
Government aid
Marín also expressed his doubts about the aid announced by the Government, estimated at 11,000 million, after claiming that "we neither know nor know if it will arrive in time".
"These issues unite two Communities to create employment", said Marín, who defended that "anticipation has been the keynote of the governments that we represent to recover the economy".
"The government neither believes nor is expected in the tourism sector", said Marín about the government's attitude to tourism, and he invoked "the different declarations of members of the government".
Marín offered "institutional loyalty to coordinate actions and reactivate sectors" to overcome what he described as "a dramatic situation with the loss of thousands of businesses and jobs", which is why he insisted that "we should be listened to, we should be attended to".
