Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, assured yesterday before her French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, that “there is no reason to cancel vacations in Spain” despite the increase in cases of COVID-19.
“We must remain prudent because COVID is still with us, but it is not the situation of previous waves, because a large part of the population is vaccinated and the incidence of cases does not translate into that which was most painful in previous waves: hospitalizations and the admission of citizens to intensive care”, the minister declared during a joint press conference with Le Drian at the Palacio de Viana in Madrid.
“This is a time for prudence, not a time to panic and certainly not a time to fall into hasty decisions”, she warned. “There is no reason to ask citizens to cancel their vacations in Spain, especially if they are vaccinated”, Gonzalez Laya declared in Spanish, a warning she then repeated in French: “Pas de raison pour annuler les vacances en Espagne”.
The press conference came a day after the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, advised his country’s citizens to “avoid” travel to Spain (“Catalonia in particular, where many French people go on vacation”) and Portugal because of new outbreaks of COVID-19.
In the same vein, the Belgian government this week recommended its citizens not to travel to Spain (with special mention also to Catalonia) and Portugal “if they are not vaccinated”, and the German Government yesterday declared Spain, as a whole, as a risk area to which travel is discouraged. According to the German Foreign Ministry, persons entering Germany from Spain must be quarantined unless a negative test, vaccination certificate or certificate of having overcome the disease can be shown.
For his part, Le Drian assured at the press conference that his government is following “the evolution of the new outbreaks of the pandemic in the Iberian Peninsula, but not only in the Iberian Peninsula”. “We call for prudence, vigilance, responsibility, and we call on everyone to comply with health instructions using above all the digital health certificate when crossing borders”, continued the French minister, who chose not to reiterate Beaune’s appeal and preferred to address, in a forceful tone, his own French fellow citizens: “Get vaccinated, the French who wish to go to Spain or Portugal or to other countries on vacation should get vaccinated, the vaccine is the gateway to Spain”.
Regarding accusations from the Spanish hospitality sector, according to which the aim of the French recommendations is to attract international tourism to the detriment of Spain and Portugal, Le Drian assured that “there is no tourist protectionism on the part of France”. “Tourism is fundamental for our two countries, we all want to go on vacation, but health protection is fundamental and that is why we have to get vaccinated, because collective immunity will only be possible when we are all vaccinated; all other measures are provisional”, he added.
In this respect, González Laya warned that if the European recommendations of “prudence, vaccination and certification, in that order” are complied with, it will be possible to “guarantee adequate safe mobility during the summer, at the most important time for tourism in Spain and France, because if in Spain tourism represents 13% of the GDP, in France it represents between 11 and 12%”. “If we are able to order mobility, we will be able to ensure that safe tourism remains the engine for the recovery of our economies, but the important thing is not to rush, not to take panic measures and that our citizens are vaccinated”, she concluded.
