UK to consider relaxing travel restrictions from EU and US

The UK government will this week consider loosening travel restrictions for travellers from the EU and the US, with one senior airport executive confident that ministers would broaden quarantine exemptions “imminently”. The move, which one government official said was “finely balanced”, would be a boost to the tourism sector and help to reopen the UK to mass foreign travel. Ministers are separately looking at removing France from the newly created “amber plus” category, which requires travellers from the UK to quarantine upon their return, amid hopes that the Beta variant of the coronavirus in that country is coming under control. Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s Europe minister, told Dominic Raab, UK foreign secretary, on Monday in Paris that there was no basis for keeping France on the amber plus list. Raab said decisions were reviewed regularly. The first decision centres on a UK government review of the system for regulating foreign travel, which will conclude this week, and will consider whether fully vaccinated travellers from the EU and US will be able to avoid quarantine in Britain. Government officials said it would be “easier” to apply looser rules to travellers from the EU, which has issued citizens with a digital health pass since the start of this month. One said: “Technically, we are pretty close.” One said that granting the same waiver to US travellers was more complicated because “their system is largely paper-based and is operated by 50 states”. One senior airport executive was confident that ministers would broaden quarantine exemptions to double-jabbed US and EU visitors “imminently”, with transport operators expected to check passengers’ certification before check-in.<br/>