From 1 December, Spain will only allow the entry of travelers from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland who have a vaccination certificate that proves full course of vaccination with an approved vaccine.
Negative tests or certificates of having overcome the disease will no longer be valid to enter the country.
This new policy has been established by the Ministry of the Interior through a ministerial order published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on Saturday 27 November. The order states that the criteria to apply temporary restrictions to travelers from outside the European Union (EU) have been modified to deal with the "new variants" that cause the Covid-19 disease.
This change comes amid growing fear among European governments over the emergence of the South African variant Omicron, which the World Health Organization (WHO) described as a "variant of concern."
"The appearance of new variants of the causative agent of the disease at this time forces to increase travel restrictions," explains the department headed by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
EU countries are now tightening restrictive measures as new cases of this strain are diagnosed across the continent. At the time of writing this article, Spain had not yet reported cases of the Omicron variant.
Countries, territories not affected
The ministerial order also removes Namibia from the list of countries and territories whose residents were exempt from these restrictions.
The list of countries and territories that are not affected by these restrictions is now as follows:
- Argentina
- Australia
- Bahrain
- Canada
- Chile
- Colombia
- Indonesia
- Jordan
- Kuwait
- New Zealand
- Peru
- Qatar
- Rwanda
- Saudi Arabia
- South Korea
- United Arab Emirates
- Uruguay
- China
- Hong Kong
- Macao
- Taiwan
