Eduardo González
Portugal’s ambassador in Madrid, João Mira-Gomes, assured yesterday that the COVID-19 situation in his country has improved “a lot” and that the Lisbon government could lift “very soon” the border restrictions with Spain.
“We had to close the borders during the first wave and we opened them afterwards in a very nice ceremony in Badajoz and Elvas, with the presence of the two heads of state,” the ambassador recalled during an online colloquium organized by Executive Forum. “We thought we were never going to close them again”, but “unfortunately”, “new restrictions, not closures, but restrictions” had to be approved at the end of last January to contain the new expansion of the pandemic, he continued. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, assured at the time that the new restrictions on border mobility between Portugal and Spain had been “agreed by common accord” by the two countries.
“The situation in Portugal with the COVID has improved a lot”, after a few months of January and February that “were very hard”, said the ambassador. “Yesterday in all of Portugal there were zero deaths, for the first time since August, and right now the contagion rate is 70 per 100,000 and occupancy in ICUs is below the red line,” he explained. For this reason, he continued, “the Parliament is going to debate in the next few days the end of the state of emergency” and within “very soon we are going to remove the restrictions on the border, especially with Galicia and not only with Galicia, because the daily transit is very important for trade, for workers and for everything”.
“We hope that the restrictions at the border will be removed very soon and that it really will be the last time that controls are imposed”, added the ambassador, who also announced that his government is working on the creation of “a cross-border workers’ card”, in line with what was agreed at the bilateral summit last March, “so that the status of cross-border workers is recognized”.
On the other hand, and with regard to the recovery of tourism, the ambassador said that “everything points” to the fact that Portugal will reach “at the beginning of June a very important number of vaccinated people to achieve, if not group immunity, almost”. Therefore, and thanks to the green certificate that is being discussed in the EU, “we are going to create the conditions for people to be able to travel safely again in summer”.
Likewise, João Mira-Gomes stated that “Spain and Portugal, as a whole, are the main tourist destination in Europe and one of the largest in the world” and, therefore, the two countries must work “together” for the recovery of tourism. “It is not about competing between Portugal and Spain, because often people who come to Madrid leave through Lisbon and those who come to Lisbon and leave through Madrid”, he said. Therefore, Spain and Portugal should coordinate to act as “a joint destination, an Iberian destination”, he added.
