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| - Greece will allow flights from additional EU destinations, including France, to land without strict quarantine rules from June 15, when Greek airports are to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions, a government official said Saturday. But flights from regions badly hit by the virus -- in France and other EU countries -- will be still be subject to a quarantine of at least a week. "It will now depend on airport of origin, not country (of origin)," the official told AFP. For France, the quarantine measures will apply to flights from the Ile-de-France region in and around Paris, officials said. For Italy, airports in the northern regions of Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Piemonte and Veneto are considered high-risk. And the same holds for Spanish airports in Castile and Leon, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia and Madrid, all hit hard by the coronavirus. A foreign ministry document on Saturday said Greece had drawn upon the recommendations of the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to determine which EU airports are still high-risk. From June 15 to 30, flights will only be allowed into Athens and Thessaloniki. Other regional and island airports will open on July 1. "If your travel originated from an airport not in the EASA affected area list...then you are only subject to random tests upon arrival," the ministry said. "If you originate from an airport on the EASA affected area list, then you will be tested upon arrival," it added. "An overnight stay at a designated hotel is required. If the test is negative then the passenger self-quarantines for seven days. If the test is positive, the passenger is quarantined under supervision for 14 days," the ministry said. On Friday, Greece announced 29 countries as safe points of departure. The list included over a dozen EU countries but Britain, France, Italy and Spain were not among them owing to the spread of the pandemic there. Since May 4, Greece has progressively opened tourism-related businesses following a lockdown imposed in March to stave off an economic contraction that could reach 13 percent of output this year. Year-round hotels are to resume operations on June 1, followed by seasonal hotels on June 15. jph/jj
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