Spanish Authorities Making A Mistake At Land Border, Says Portugal

Spanish authorities must be making a mistake when they ask people crossing the border into Spain to show the results of a negative PCR test, the Portuguese Foreign minister has said.

ON Monday, June 7, Spain began to require people who travel from Portugal by land to produce a negative test for Covid-19, certificate of vaccination or recovery of the disease, Portuguese news agency LUSA reported.

The move “could only have been a mistake,” Portugal’s foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva said.

“We have asked Spanish authorities for clarification and await it being granted as quickly as possible, because if not we will need to adopt equivalent reciprocal measures. The epidemiological situation in Spain is, at the moment, worse than what we are living in Portugal,” the Minister added.

The border between Portugal and Spain opened on May 1 after three months of travel restrictions.

Spain requires proof that air travellers be tested or vaccinated and Portugal wants negative PCR test results from Spaniards. But neither Spain nor Portugal required tests for people crossing the border by land.

The Spanish Health Ministry website says that travellers from Spain’s Health Ministry website said that all travellers from ‘high risk’ zones needed to show a negative PCR test upon entry from June 7. That list includes Portugal, alongside other European countries including Ireland. The UK is among 10 countries exempt.

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