Will Europe close its doors if Britain gives green light for holidays?
Angela Merkel calls for all EU nations to impose quarantine on British visitors
Angela Merkel has dealt a blow to hopes of European summer holidays after calling on all EU countries to enforce quarantine rules on Britons travelling to the continent.
The German chancellor told the Bundestag yesterday that “in our country, if you come from Great Britain you have to go into quarantine – and that’s not the case in every European country”, adding: “That’s what I would like to see.”
The intervention comes as rising cases of the Delta variant are recorded across countries including Portugal and Spain, and against a backdrop of “fierce criticism of Boris Johnson for failing to shut off travel from India in time”, The Independent reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Environment Secretary George Eustice told LBC that he doesn’t believe “such a move would be justified”, particularly given the UK is at a “highly advanced stage” of vaccination rollout.
View from the UK
Government ministers are set to announce an overhaul of travel restrictions today, with new additions expected to be added to the travel “green list” reports The Times.
While ministers are “not expected to add a significant number of countries to the green list”, it is thought they are “likely” to reveal plans to exempt travellers who have received both jabs from a ten-day quarantine after visiting an amber list destination, says the paper.
Indeed, quarantine-free travel for the fully vaccinated is “absolutely something” the government is “working on”, the health secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News on Tuesday.
He added: “This hasn't been clinically advised yet [but] we're working on it.”
While The Times reports that the plan could come into force in August, Hancock was less forthcoming on dates, telling Sky: “We’ll get there when it’s safe to do so.”
Earlier this week, analysis by The Times revealed that only 89 of 23,465 passengers who travelled from the UK to an amber list destination between 20 May and 9 June tested positive for coronavirus on returning home, a rate of just 0.4%.
There were no positive cases from 151 of the 167 amber list countries, while nobody travelling from the 11 countries on the quarantine-free “green list” tested positive during the same period. Of those who did test positive, none carried a “variant of concern”.
The figures have led to calls from backbench Tory MPs and travel industry bosses to relax the rules on foreign travel and significantly expand the “green list”.
Graham Brady, chairman of the influential 1922 committee, said it was time “to get the travel industry moving again”, adding: “Vaccination and testing are making international travel safer just as surely as they make things safer within our borders,” Travel Weekly reports.
The Department for Transport is also mulling plans to “exempt unvaccinated children from the double jab scheme” to allow families to holiday together, the paper adds. Under-18s would still face tests to screen for Covid, but would not have to quarantine.
However, The Times reports that “parts of the government" are keen to hold off on the plans until at least September, in order to avoid “an influx of children returning from foreign holidays and spreading the virus in schools,” says the paper.
While ministers weigh up plans to make summer getaways possible, the government remains concerned by the spread of the Delta variant, which has become dominant in the UK and is beginning to rise in Europe.
Speaking to Sky News last week, Justice Minister Robert Buckland said ministers will be “guided by the evidence” when it comes to foreign travel.
“Inevitably, in a situation as unprecedented and demanding as this, there are going to have to be significant trade-offs and it’s clear that holidays as normal – or travel as normal – was never going to be the case, bearing in mind the rise of particular variants, most notably the Delta variant,” he said.
The strain now accounts for 99% of new cases in the UK. And while deaths remain low – mostly in single figures per day – infections have increased and hospitalisations are rising. According to Public Health England, the number of confirmed cases of the Delta variant had risen by 33,630 cases in the week to 16 June to 75,953.
New research has also found the variant “doubles the risk of hospitalisation”, Politico reports, a factor causing significant concern in mainland Europe.
And a “fresh blow” for the travel industry was delivered by Boris Johnson during a visit to Hertfordshire on Monday, reports the Financial Times, with the prime minister keen to underline he did not expect overseas travel to return to normal until next year at the earliest.
“I want to stress that this is going to be - whatever happens - a difficult year for travel,” Johnson said. “There will be hassle, there will be delays, I am afraid, because the priority has got to be to keep the country safe and stop the virus coming back in.”
View from Europe
Even if the government is keen for holidays to Europe to restart, it is far from guaranteed that British holidaymakers will be allowed to enter popular European destinations before the end of the summer.
European experts are looking to the UK “for clues about what may happen next and which measures may need to be taken”, the Financial Times (FT) says, with some fearing that “wherever the Delta variant is introduced, it will eventually become dominant”.
The strain is “gaining ground” on the continent and is now dominant in Portugal, which was on the UK government’s “green list” until it was removed almost three weeks ago.
The variant accounts for 26% of sequenced Covid-19 infections in Italy, 16% in Belgium and around 7% in France, according to FT analysis.
Several European countries have travel restrictions in place to limit people from the UK entering, including Ireland, which is set to “double the quarantine period” for travellers entering from Britain from five to ten days, according to The Guardian.
France currently requires a negative test result from within 72 hours for anyone entering from the UK, as well as a seven-day quarantine for unvaccinated travellers. And Germany has declared the UK a “virus variant area of concern”, allowing only German citizens, residents or those with humanitarian reasons to enter the country.
The key to Europe opening up to travellers is likely to be through mass vaccination. However, jab rates remain relatively low compared to the UK, with the proportion of the population now fully protected hovering at around 20% to 30% across the bloc, according to Oxford University tracking.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.
-
Today's political cartoons - March 16, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - pointed commentary, Haiti in trouble, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilarious cartoons about the RNC's MAGA takeover
Cartoons Artists take on RNC funding, Lara Trump, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Trump's presidential run: a bad bet for Republicans?
Talking Point The GOP is taking a 'big gamble' on former president's 2024 White House bid
By The Week UK Published
-
Excess screen time is making children only see what is in front of them
Under the radar The future is looking blurry. And very nearsighted.
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Has the international pandemic treaty lost its way?
Under The Radar 'Wrangling and disinformation' mean plans for a global preparedness agreement are close to crumbling
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
All is not well: is the UK getting sicker?
Today's Big Question Life expectancy has stopped increasing and the number off work sick is soaring
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
'Lives at risk': why is the NHS suffering drug shortages?
Today's Big Question Brexit exacerbates global supply issues caused by Covid-19, Ukraine war and Red Sea attacks
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Covid-19: what to know about UK's new Juno and Pirola variants
in depth Rapidly spreading new JN.1 strain is 'yet another reminder that the pandemic is far from over'
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Does declining birth rate spell doom for Britain?
Today's Big Question Ageing population puts pressure on welfare state, economy and fabric of society, while fertility is rising on populist agendas
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Long-term respiratory illness is here to stay
The Explainer Covid is not the only disease with a long version
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Covid inquiry: the most important questions for Boris Johnson
Talking Point Former PM has faced weeks of heavy criticism from former colleagues at the public hearing
By The Week Staff Published