Americans are snapping up homes in Greece, lured by the lower cost of healthcare, life by the sea, and the promise of a five-year residence permit. But critics say the country’s Golden Visa scheme has also opened a door to money laundering and driven up real estate prices for ordinary Greeks.
Digital Covid Certificates have been a challenge foreign residents of Greece. Credit: lucas Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.The EU Digital Covid Certificate, that went live on Tuesday, is inaccessible to legal foreign residents in Greece.Hundreds of foreigners who have Greek residency permits have complained across social media groups that they are getting bounced from the…
Αssociated Press
A nurse prepares the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 as the local resident Nikos Gavalas looks on at a vaccination center on the tiny Aegean island of Iraklia, Greece, Thursday, May 13, 2021.(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis) 5/23/2021 TNH Staff
ATHENS – As Greece touts its accelerating COVID-19 vaccination program dubbed Eleftheria (Freedom) most foreign residents are finding it next to impossible to register for a shot despite many being in vulnerable elderly groups.
Especially concerned are European pensioners who moved to Greece for a simpler and cheaper way of life and now feel outside a system they said has isolated them even as the New Democracy government said its wants to inoculate at least 70 percent of the population of 10.7 million – or 7.49 million people – to slow the pandemic.