Spain has ruled out any early reopening of its tourism sector and Germany is set to extend a travel warning for all leisure trips outside the country until mid-June, casting further doubt on when would-be holidaymakers will be able to venture abroad again.
With airline fleets mostly grounded, cross-border train traffic slashed and many EU countries, including France, requiring all arrivals bar their own citizens to formally justify their journey, leisure travel within Europe is at a near standstill.
“We have not yet reached the point where we can recommend carefree travel,” the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said on Wednesday.
Arancha González Laya, Spain’s foreign minister, on Wednesday said visitors would be welcomed back to the country – which has suffered Europe’s highest Covid-19 death toll after Italy – only when it is safe for them to come.
Spain has suffered more than 24,000 coronavirus deaths and public prosecutors on Wednesday announced that 109 care homes were the subject of criminal investigations relating to the pandemic, including 42 in the Madrid region, where 5,811 people in such facilities have died from the virus.
Spain, Italy and France have been the worst affected countries in continental Europe, but daily death tallies and infection rates appear to be on a broadly downward trend, and many countries have begun gradually lifting restrictions.