By James Tapsfield, Political Editor for Mail Online
British holidaymakers face being quarantined if they travel to Spain unless the UK government drops its own restrictions, it emerged today.
Madrid has warned that ‘reciprocal’ coronavirus controls will be placed on travellers despite the country opening up to most of the rest of Europe from this weekend.
The news will heap pressure on ministers to think again about the 14-day isolation rule for arrivals in the UK, which has been condemned as pointless and damaging by many Tories and the aviation industry.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps seemed to reject the idea of a rethink this morning, saying there would be no change to the system until June 29 ‘at the earliest’. There have been hopes that ‘air bridges’ would be put in place with low-infection countries before then to salvage the summer for travellers.
Airlines have been gearing up for a new wave of British tourists, with easyJet offering cut-price deals and British Airways planning to restore half of its daily flights to Spain in July.
However, the UK Foreign Office is still advising against all ‘non-essential international travel’ – a warning which will invalidate most travel insurance policies if it is ignored – and returning Brits will face quarantine.
By contrast, thousands of German tourists have been lounging on Spanish beaches this week after they were encouraged to fly to the Balearic Islands in a pilot project.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has brought forward the resumption of the tourist season to this Sunday, saying that recovery of the sector ‘is key for this government’.
Officials had suggested that the UK would be included in exemptions granted to all EU states.
But Spain’s foreign affairs minister Arancha González Laya said today that there is likely to be ‘reciprocity’ with the UK’s tough restrictions.
She told the BBC’s HARDtalk programme: ‘We will be checking what the UK will be doing and we will be in dialogue with the UK to see whether or not we should be introducing reciprocity as they have different measures than the rest of the EU.’
Ms Gonzalez Laya added that the situation was ‘fluid’ and she wanted to ‘engage in a dialogue with the UK 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,’ she added.
It came as borders were thrown open across Europe as a raft of countries including Germany and France lifted three months of coronavirus checks.