Spain opens its borders
Following EU agreement USA and Brazil nationals are still banned
SPAIN, in line with the other EU countries, has reopened its borders to citizens of 14 non-EU countries with good Covid-19 records.
The so-called 'safe travel destinations' are: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.
China could be added providing the Asian giant does likewise for EU citizens.
The UK and four other nonEU states - Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway - are automatically included as safe.
The list does not include the US, where some of the states that pushed hardest and earliest to reopen their economies are now in retreat because of an alarming surge in confirmed coronavirus infections.
The EU extended its ban on visitors not just from the US but from China and from countries such as Russia, Brazil and India where infections are running high.
Britain dropped out of the EU in January and maintains its own rules, requiring arriving travellers to go into 14-day selfquarantine.
US President Donald Trump suspended the entry of most Europeans in March.
More than 15 million Americans travel to Europe each year, while some 10 million Europeans head across the Atlantic.
Border with Portugal reopens
The leaders of Spain and Portugal marked the reopening of their land border, more than three months after shutting it because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Spain's King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez met with Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and PM Antonio Costa for border ceremonies in Badajoz on the Spanish side and later in Elvas, Portugal.
Wearing masks, which they removed to hear their national anthems played, the Iberian leaders toured a Moorish fortress and museum in Badajoz before visiting a 14th century castle in Elvas, 12 miles away.
They gave no speeches at Wednesday's event.
The Iberian Peninsula countries had agreed to close their border to traffic, except for goods trucks and local crossborder workers, on March 17.
Flare-ups
Over the past week Spain has officially recorded almost 2,000 new cases - the majority in clusters surrounding flare-ups in 13 different regions. The ministry of health says the most concerning are in Huesca/ Zaragoza and Málaga.
Unemployment soars
The economic impact of Covid-19 lockdown measures was underlined yesterday (Thursday) as it was revealed that in June unemployment increased by 5,107 and the overall figure now stands at 3,862,883 a huge 28% more than in June 2019.
On the brighter side, 1.4 million people on ERTE (furlough) were back at work in June.