Spain Plans to Apply Reciprocal Quarantine for UK Visitors
Spain may impose quarantine on British travellers when it reopens its borders on June 21, as a response to the same measure taken last week by Britain’s government.
The possible move has been announced by Spain’s Foreign Minister, Arancha Gonzalez who also said that she expected Britain would lift its restrictions making it unnecessary for the Spanish side to apply reciprocity,
“We will be in a dialogue with the UK to see whether or not we should be introducing reciprocity as they have different measures than the rest of the European Union,” Spain’s Foreign Minister pointed out.
According to the minister, the current situation is “fluid”, and officials would like to properly engage in a dialogue with the United Kingdom authorities to make sure that “we both take the message that best corresponds to the health situation, which today is a little bit better in Spain than it is in the UK”.
“Hopefully by the time we open our borders, the UK would have moved forward also,” Gonzales pointed out.
Regarding this issue, Britain’s Finance Minister Rishi Sunak stressed that the quarantine was among the measures that it would be reviewed, adding that the government could make changes including introducing travel corridors with specific countries.
About 12 per cent of Spain’s economy is based on the tourism sector, which makes this sector essential for the country, especially during the summer season.
According to the report of National Institute of Statistics, last year nearly 18 million British tourists visited Spain, more than a fifth of the overall total of nearly 84 million visitors.
Last week, Spanish Primer Pedro Sánchez said that the country plans to open its borders to tourists; thus the tourist sector should start to prepare for the upcoming summer season.
Spain’s government decided to reopen its borders on July 1 for European Union and Schengen Zone countries (except for Portugal), without the need to go through the mandatory quarantine, upon a recommendation of the EU Commission to remove borders on June 15, as the majority of the EU members.
