Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday called the UK government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on everyone arriving from the European country was “unjust”.
In an interview with the Telecinco TV network, Sanchez said his government was “talking with British authorities to try to get them to reconsider” the decision, the BBC reported.
The UK had made an “error” by considering the infection rate for the whole country, he said.
Sanchez added that “64.5 per cent of the new cases registered are in two territories” and in most of Spain the prevalence of COVID-19 was “very much inferior to the numbers registered in the UK”.
The rate of infection in Spain is 35.1 cases per 100,000 people, while the UK is at 14.7, according to the latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
On July 25, the UK government announced that travellers arriving from Spain must now quarantine for 14 days, under new coronavirus travel rules following a spike in COVID-19 cases in the European country.
According to the rules, quarantine measures apply to those returning from mainland Spain, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, such as Majorca and Ibiza.
On Monday, the Foreign Office also extended its travel advice for Spain, now telling people to avoid non-essential journeys to the Canary and Balearic Islands, as well as mainland Spain.