Germany and France to Propose EU-wide Quarantine Rules for British Arrivals

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron will tell EU leaders to impose quarantine restrictions on British tourists to stop the spread of the delta variant of coronavirus at a summit in Brussels today.

The German Chancellor said she would "talk very critically" at the European Council meeting and upbraid the leaders of tourism dependent countries for "a failure even today to adequately control arrival from non-EU states where virus variants are proliferating."

Different EU countries have different rules for visitors from the UK, where the delta variant makes up the majority of cases.

EU countries can make their own decisions on border and health policy, including coronavirus restrictions, but there are efforts, now spearheaded by Mrs Merkel, to ensure the bloc's response is the same in every member state.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, signalled he would support Mrs Merkel.

Mrs Merkel warned that Europe was on "thin ice" in its fight against the pandemic and that the delta variant risked undermining recent progress in cutting down infections in her traditional pre-EU summit address to the Bundestag on Thursday.

France, Germany, Italy and Poland either have or will introduce quarantine restrictions.

Tourism-dependent countries such as Spain, Greece, and Croatia are expected to ignore the German demand for fear of another lost season.

At the same time UK is expected to approve plans for fully vaccinated people to be able to travel to amber list countries later this summer and not be subject to quarantine when they return home.