Spain is accelerating on the front of deconfinement. The country has thus decided to advance to June 21 the restoration of free movement with all the countries of the European Union, including France, with the exception of Portugal. The government decided to lift controls with its neighbor only on July 1, the date that had been originally decided. A decision taken after discussions with the Portuguese authorities.
This date of June 21 corresponds to the lifting in Spain of the state of alert, which made it possible in mid-March to impose one of the strictest confinements in the world, and at the end of the prudent deconfinement started in mid-May. Pedro Sanchez, the head of the Spanish government, said that the quarantine imposed since May 15 on travelers arriving in Spain will also be lifted from May 21.
The announcement comes after Brussels on Thursday called on its member states to lift all internal border restrictions as of Monday. Spain, whose share of GDP stands at 12%, had already taken steps to revive a sector crucial to its economy. Nearly 11,000 German nationals are thus expected from Monday in the Balearic archipelago. A possibility offered thanks to a pilot program to restart tourism in a country where more than 27,000 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic.
Like the other countries of the Union, Spain will then start from Wednesday 1 July to reopen its borders to travelers coming from non-European countries where the situation of the epidemic "is similar or more favorable" than in the EU, said Pedro Sanchez. The Spanish authorities fear that the reopening of the borders could lead to new sources of contagion. It is "a critical moment but we are prepared for it," says the head of government.