Spain: Tourist Activities Will Gradually Resume in July

Spain's Foreign Affairs Minister Arancha Gonzalez Thursday announced that tourism activities in her country will resume on July 1.

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"We have to evaluate the territories that have finished de-escalating and reached what we call the new normality. Only then, we can imagine these territories will be open to foreigners,” Gonzalez stated.

Her administration will schedule gradual touristic installations reopening, but destinations and possible visitors are up to define. Besides, she affirmed her office would implement an epidemiological protocol for newcomers.

"We need to define what's safe. To have 50 infections? To have four? It is very important that this definition is made at the European level because this is ultimately a guarantee of non-discrimination," Gonzalez added.

Spain's government implemented a progressive quarantine-lifting plan and proposed an alarm state extension until late June. Spaniards can go outside, practice sports, and gather in groups under 10 people.

"We will do the opening gradually. For us, that means starting, obviously, with the European Union and even within this area we want to be sure that we open up to countries or territories that are safe from an epidemiological point of view,” she stated.

Withing the EU territory, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta, Italy, Portugal, and Romania were Spain's paramount tourism senders before the pandemic.

As of Friday morning, Spain had reported 285,644 COVID-19 cases, 27,121 deaths, and 196,958 recoveries from the virus.