Date Published: 01/07/2020
ARCHIVED - Spain reviewing EU list of safe countries: without reciprocation the list may be scrapped
ARCHIVED ARTICLE Covid confusion continues in spite of EU agreement!
Hours after the EU agreed a list of 15 "safe countries" to which it will open its external borders starting on Wednesday, the Spanish Government has said that it is still reviewing how many of them will allow Spanish citizens to travel to their countries with a view to scrapping the agreement made between EU states just hours ago.
The Spanish Government expects "reciprocity"and at the moment there are several countries on the list which will not admit Spanish citizens at the moment.
Although the “Twenty-seven” adopted a unanimous decision about the list of external countries from which entry would be allowed, the pact they closed on Tuesday is nothing more than a recommendation, and is not actually binding, so each country has the right to veto the list and make its own decisions.
Italy announced last night that it was not willing to accept any visitors from outside of the EU and will impose a quarantine on all of them, scrapping the agreement altogether.
Greece has announced that all flights from the UK would be banned from entering the country until July 15th, expressing its concerns that case numbers in the UK were still too high. TUI, Ryanair, BA and Jet2 have all been forced to hastily cancel flights, throwing travel plans into chaos.
It’s clear that China will remain firmly off the Spanish list, as Beijing is not currently allowing European residents to enter. In the case of Morocco, the decision is bilateral between the two countries, as Rabat has already agreed that it will keep the Moroccan border closed until at least July 10th. The situation is the same with Algeria, which is also currently closed and other countries could also leave the list before it is published in the BOE.
On Wednesday Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, affirmed during the ceremony to re-open the border between Spain and Portugal that agreements with other nations would be "based on reciprocity", in addition to the "strictly epidemiological" and not "diplomatic" criteria by which the EU has been guided to draw up its first list of 15 "safe countries".
The Ministry of the Interior is reported to have not yet drafted the Ministerial Order to be published by the BOE for the reopening of external borders to take effect. In principle, it should have been this Wednesday, as agreed in Brussels, but the tight deadlines have delayed the administrative process. Government spokeswoman, María Jesús Montero, indicated yesterday that the reopening would be between this Thursday and this Friday. Right now the midnight option from Thursday, July 2 to Friday, July 3 appears as the most likely.
What is going on with the UK green travel corridors?????
In spite of the announcement last week by the British government that it would be creating “travel corridors” with a three tier “traffic light system”, UK travellers are still waiting to see which countries are involved in the agreement and if Spain is included.
The UK government originally said that it would be making an announcement on June 29th about which countries would be involved in the scheme and from which holidaymakers would be permitted to return to the UK without having to quarantine for 14 days.
It’s now July 1st and no such announcement has been made.
As a result, the Foreign Office is still advising British residents against all but essential travel, which means none of the British residents flying to Spain today are covered by their travel insurance as they are effectively ignoring the advice being given by the Foreign Office.
British nationals are ONLY being allowed into Spain without quarantining because the Spanish Government was expecting a reciprocal agreement, and the British are reportedly booking holidays in Spain as though that agreement already exists in the belief that it will, so when will the travel corridor announcement be made?????