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What’s the latest on when Americans will be able to travel to Spain from the US?

As Europe continues to tweak the opening of its external borders to, it seems that visitors from America will have to wait a little longer. Here's what is happening with Spain's travel rules for Americans.

Published: 20 July 2020 15:34 CEST
What's the latest on when Americans will be able to travel to Spain from the US?
AFP

The EU on Thursday published its revised list of 'safe' countries which it recommends members allow travellers to enter from – but the USA is still not on it.

Europe began to open up its external borders on July 1st (after opening up travel within Europe from June 15th) and at that time the EU said that the list of 'safe' countries would be revised every two weeks.

The first revised list has now been published, and no new countries have been added but Serbia and Montenegro have been removed from the list.

The list will be revised again in another two weeks.

So what does this mean for Americans?

Firstly, the travel rules are based around where you are coming from, not what passport you hold. So a US citizen travelling from Germany, for example, would be permitted to enter Spain because there are no travel between Germany and Spain.

READ ALSO: Everything visitors to Spain need to know about its Covid-19 travel rules

 

Secondly, this does not affect US citizens who are permanent residents of Spain or other EU countries, although they will need to show proof of residency at the border.

Essential travel has been permitted throughout the lockdown and this continues, although the definition of essential travel into the EU is stricter than many countries' individual rules and does not include a category for family emergencies (more detail below).

So this latest ruling really affects tourists, second home owners and those wishing to visit family and friends in Spain.

This will now stay in place until at least July 30th.

Is it a final ruling?

The EU's list is advisory and member states are free to impose different rules if they want (as for example Italy has done) so in theory Spain could decide to allow in visitors from the US anyway.

There's another list due at the beginning of August but the list is largely based on the health situation in individual countries, so how quickly the ban on American tourists is lifted really depends on the evolution of the coronavirus epidemic in the US.

Countries were included on the safe list if the coronavirus outbreak in the country was judged to be the same or better than that EU average. The bar was fixed at 16 cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.

The revised list of 'safe' countries is: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay. China is also provisionally on the list, if reciprocity requirements are met.

Who can travel from the US to Spain?

The European council' statement says: “For countries where travel restrictions continue to apply, the following categories of people should be exempted from the restrictions:

  • EU citizens and their family members
  • long-term EU residents and their family members
  • travellers with an essential function or need, as listed in the recommendation.

In the European council's recommendation these are the “Specific categories of travellers with an essential function or need”:

  • Healthcare professionals, health researchers, and elderly care professionals; Frontier workers;
  • Seasonal workers in agriculture;
  • Transport personnel;
  • Diplomats, staff of international organisations and people invited by international organisations whose physical presence is required for the well-functioning of these organisations, military personnel and humanitarian aid workers and civil protection personnel in the exercise of their functions;
  • Passengers in transit;
  • Passengers travelling for imperative family reasons;
  • Seafarers
  • Persons in need of international protection or for other humanitarian reasons
  • Third-country nationals travelling for the purpose of study;
  • Highly qualified third-country workers if their employment is necessary from an economic perspective and the work cannot be postponed or performed abroad.

It's important to remember however that travellers will ultimately have to convince border guards that they meet one of the above categories.

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

Published: 26 March 2024 09:55 CET
German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of €420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of €2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some €200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of €2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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