Safe corridors are back on the agenda.

Safe corridors are back on the agenda. | Arguiñe Escandón

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma08/09/2020 19:42
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Spain's foreign affairs minister, Arancha González Laya, announced on Tuesday that Spain will be negotiating the re-opening of safe corridors for tourist travel without the need for quarantine on return. These negotiations will be with the UK, Germany and Scandinavian countries in particular, with corridors for the Canaries and the Balearics top of the agenda.

Gónzalez Laya, in Milan for talks with her Italian counterpart, was responding to the UK government's new strategy regarding islands. She appreciated the UK decision to take islands into account and not whole countries.

The minister said that it was important to restore the flow of tourists as soon as possible. This will be especially important for the Canaries, where there is a winter tourism season. She suggested that negotiations on opening air corridors will start with the UK and that negotiations with Germany and Scandinavian countries will then follow.

Spain, Gónzalez Laya added, has asked the European Union to adopt border measures which are as coordinated as possible and the "least damaging to free movement". She referred to increased testing, to reducing the "indiscriminate" closure of borders and also to the need for criteria other than just infection rates to be taken into account - the amount of testing, the number of asymptomatic cases and the degree of hospital pressure.