Spain: no tit-for-tat quarantine with UK
Country’s tourist minister pleads with Britons to visit on holiday despite fears of a second virus wave
SPAIN’S tourism minister has said the country will not impose reciprocal quarantine measures on travellers arriving from Britain, even as fears rise about a second wave of Covid-19 infections hitting the UK.
Reyes Maroto told tourists to “come back to Spain” in an interview with Sunday Telegraph as the country entered a recession.
Around 10,000 British tourists have cancelled holidays to Majorca in the first two weeks of August after the sudden decision to quarantine holidaymakers on their arrival back in the UK.
Ms Marato said Spain was “not contemplating” a 14-day quarantine for UK arrivals as Spain was in a phase of “reactivation” and had “learned to co-exist” with Covid-19.
“We have to respect it but we don’t have to fear it,” Ms Marato said. “We now have functioning protocols and therefore we need to be a bit more flexible as we confront this second stage.”
The minister repeated concerns from within the Spanish government that the UK’s quarantine rules were “disproportionate”, and said there was a mismatch between the island and coastal destinations favoured by UK holidaymakers, and the regions that have witnessed new outbreaks.
In addition to quarantine on return, British tourists face uncertainty over flight cancellations, entry procedures and possible lockdowns in Spain. In early June, Spain was registering fewer than 100 new cases of Covid-19 per day, but that figure shot back up to more than 1,500 on Thursday, led by the Aragon and Madrid regions. This month, the Catalonia region was also forced to reimpose a full lockdown on the city of Lleida, which has only just been lifted.
Ms Maroto admitted that Spain needed to boost confidence in its ability to handle the virus. Covid-19 tests in airports were “on the table”, she said, along with a tracking app to alert travellers of potential cases around them. Spain is desperate to recoup some of the losses from economic shutdown caused by the virus.
Its GDP shrank 18.5 per cent in the second quarter – the biggest drop since the civil war in the Thirties.
With the economy facing an uncertain autumn, Spain is also keen to maintain its strong commercial relationship with Britain as Brexit looms. Ms Maroto described the UK as “an ally, without a doubt”, and said she was “convinced that Brexit can also be an opportunity to continue strengthening our ties, culturally and commercially”.
Ms Maroto also addressed the images released two weeks ago of drunk British tourists ignoring social distancing restrictions in the Majorcan resort of Magaluf, saying they “did not represent the majority”.
After meeting a group of UK holidaymakers in Ibiza this week, the minister said she admired their “exemplary” behaviour in wearing masks despite the 40C (104F) heat.
“British people would prefer to be in Spain enjoying their holidays with these measures than not to travel at all,” she said.
Ms Maroto also called on the UK Government to think of the British business owners living and working in Spain who were “leaders” in the economy, and to establish safe corridors to the Balearic and Canary Islands, which have some of the country’s lowest rates of infection.
Talks on relaxing the quarantine measure for certain regions continue with the UK Government, she said, adding that she was confident of a breakthrough. “Our campaign is ‘Back to Spain,” she said.
‘‘We are ready and we are a safe destination, so we want to resolve this problem that we have with our British friends, and I am convinced that soon we will reach an agreement.”
Miguel Cifre, president of the Balearic Association of Tourist Holiday Home Entrepreneurs, reiterated calls to exclude the islands from quarantine rules.
He told island newspaper Ultima
Hora yesterday: “People want to come because they are safer health-wise than in the UK. It’s obvious that it’s a political issue.”