Portugal to present pandemic report to sway UK air bridge decision

Portugal is set to present a report on the epidemiological situation of the country based on the criteria used by the United Kingdom to judge whether a country is deemed safe for travel, to try to change the travel restrictions with the UK caused by the ongoing pandemic, announced the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs today.

“We had formally asked the United Kingdom to present the report on which it says it bases its decision and today we received a response to that request,” said Augusto Santos Silva. The Portuguese authorities will now present “information on the evolution of the Portuguese epidemiological situation exactly according to the parameters and indicators that the United Kingdom tells us it is using”, he explained.

With this adoption of British indicators, the Government hopes that the next review of the list of countries that require a quarantine period on return to the United Kingdom will no longer include Portugal.

“I hope that a next review by the British authorities will finally mean the recognition of the facts, because, in my opinion, there is no fact in Portugal that justifies passengers coming from Portugal to be quarantined in England”, he said.

On July 24, the United Kingdom made a decision to deny Portugal an air corridor that allow tourists to not be required to quarantine on their return to their home country.

The United Kingdom has “carried out revisions in the most restrictive sense, because it included, in the list of these countries subject to quarantine, others that were not previously”, recalled the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The next revision of the list made by the United Kingdom should not be officially published until the end of the month, but the change in restrictions to Portugal may happen earlier.

“What the British authorities have said is that they regularly carry out this review, but that at any time they can do that”, which “is true since they imposed quarantine on Spain two days after they published the new list”, recalled Santos Silva.

On Tuesday, the Portugal News launched an Internet petition asking the British Government to reconsider and include Portugal in the air corridor with the United Kingdom, which has already been signed by more than 28,000 people.

The Portugal News asks the British Government, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to change its position and “open an air bridge” between the two countries, pointing to the possibility for British tourists to bypass the quarantine imposition, traveling to Portugal through a third country not subject to this restriction.