“The Balearic government should be more than happy...” | Reuters

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I suspect that the mood was rather jubilant at the headquarters of the Balearic government on Thursday night. Not only were the Balearics on Britain´s Green List for Safe Travel they were the only holiday destination in Spain to be on the list. Weeks of hard work alongside the British Foreign Office had paid a hefty dividend. Plenty of work has been going on behind the scenes with officials at the Balearic government in close contact with the British Embassy and the Consulate network in the Balearics.

Also, the Balearic Covid figures speak for themselves, they are far lower than the rest of Spain. When Spain as a whole was put on “amber” the Balearic President Francina Armengol complained that the islands had been “robbed” by the rest of the country. The British government´s announcement was worth its weight in gold for the Balearic government which has faced criticism that they had not done enough to protect the tourist industry from the ill-winds of Covid.

It must be remembered that much of the economic revenue in the islands comes from tourism, other parts of Spain are not so reliant on holidaymakers. So in other words the islands had to be on the Green List. In the end the Balearic government was successful and the islands can look forward to a large number of tourists coming to our shores. A note of caution, though. Portugal was on the green list and it was ejected after a week, let us hope that doesn´t happens to the Balearics.