Austria on Wednesday chose a middle way in its standoff with neighbouring countries on whether skiing over Christmas is safe, by letting resorts reopen on Christmas Eve but making ski holidays virtually impossible, Reuters reports.

Many ski resorts became breeding grounds for the coronavirus during the first wave of infections, and resorts have adopted a social distancing and other infection-curbing measures to ensure that does not happen again.

Despite that, Italy has said it will keep resorts shut over the Christmas and New Year holidays for fear of infections accelerating again. It called for a European agreement on closures backed by Germany, which has few resorts but many skiers who flock to foreign resorts, but Austria opposed it.