Belgium's federal ministry of foreign affairs released on Thursday an updated list of countries based on the epidemiological situation according to zones and although most of Croatia is still on the red list, and some regions are on the orange list, Istria and Varazdin have been put back on the green list.

The green list identifies countries and regions where travel from Belgium is possible. Istria and Varazdin, along with Bulgaria’s North Central region, some Italian regions, all of Lichtenstein, some regions in Poland and Switzerland, and two regions in Sweden have been declared as safe to travel to.

“The announcement by Belgium’s authorities about taking a regional approach regarding travel restrictions to certain countries and to include Istria and Varazdin on the green list is a welcome sign for tourism and is the approach we have supported since the outbreak of the pandemic,” director of the Croatian Tourism Association (HUT) Veljko Ostojic told Hina.

We in HUT support the regional approach in defining travel restrictions as well as a transparent framework for introducing them, which has best been illustrated recently by Germany, Ostojic said.

He assessed that the regional approach gave local communities an incentive to maintain quality despite the epidemiological situation and that it positively impacts the quality of the overall epidemiological picture in the country.

“We hope that other countries will also adopt that approach which, in any case, is being advocated at the EU level,” said Ostojic.