Why European nations are starting to cut Covid red tape for tourists

Competitive reopening will see countries racing to remove barriers as they seek to attract British travellers, writes Simon Calder

Portugal is going to end the requirement for travellers to present a negative Covid test before departure (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Crikey: that was quick. In my weekly travel email at 7am on Friday morning, I bemoaned the web of Covid-related red tape stifling travel in Europe. By 1pm a number of nations had sought to cut some of that tape.

For months, British travellers have been mesmerised by the UK government’s complex and incoherent sequence of travel rules in response to Omicron. Our policy of unilateral deterrence of international tourism ends next Friday. But I noted with dismay that the European countries that I – and probably you – love so much had begun 2022 by doing their darndest to keep us out.

France and Italy have taken a leaf out of the UK’s book to dabble in Covid-19 touristic self-destruction. The French government wrote off its ski industry’s most profitable fortnight over Christmas and New Year with a travel ban on Brits of questionable medical value (but one that was presumably politically advantageous). And Italy, like France, demands jabs plus tests to allow in travellers from the UK.

Both nations impose even tougher bureaucratic demands if you actually want to do anything such as enjoy a cup of coffee or catch a bus once you arrive.

The pain in Spain is even more acute, with British families told flatly that no one 12 or older can travel there unless they have been jabbed twice. “They cannot enter with a diagnostic test or a recovery certificate,” the authorities in Madrid insist. That harsh decision from the UK's favourite overseas destination scuppers the first sunny holiday in two years for a good number of prospective travellers.

“Within a month, I predict an almighty clatter: the sound of hurdles being hurriedly removed,” I wrote in my morning email. “Competitive reopening will see countries racing to remove barriers as they seek to lure back British travellers for Easter and the summer.”

Within hours European nations were queuing up to claim first-mover advantage.

At 9.21am a French minister tweeted that the 24-hour window for pre-departure tests had doubled to 48 hours. By 12.27pm Norway announced: “There is no longer a requirement to test on or after arrival.” And as I write, a date for the abolition of testing before travel to Portugal is expected imminently.

Coronavirus travel bans began as nations tried to keep out infected individuals, despite the World Health Organisation describing closing frontiers as mostly useless. New Zealand and western Australia will beg to disagree, citing their vanishingly low levels of Covid deaths.

They are in no rush to rejoin the world. But when finally the governments in Wellington and Perth condescend to allow us in, they may find themselves left far behind. It’s time to move.