Greece's Prime Minister has begged for double-jabbed Brits to be allowed to go on holiday and has taken aim at Angela Merkel for plotting to ban the UK's holidaymakers travelling to Europe this summer.
Greece has joined Spain in vowing to ignore any ban with the German Chancellor and French President Emmanuel Macron lobbying the EU for support to slap a mandatory 14-day quarantine on all arrivals from the UK.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis instead hit out at the harsh proposals and told Mrs Merkel she should concentrate on rolling out Covid jabs faster.
“My personal assessment – which I believe is shared by the majority of the European Council – is that there is no need to impose additional restrictions on travel from countries where this mutation already exists and its spread is more pronounced,” he told journalists at the end of Friday’s EU summit.
“There is an answer to the question of variants – and in particular the Delta variants – and that is to speed up the vaccination process,” he said.
Another blow was also dealt to Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also dismissing the plans.
“Malta and Spain are being a bit more lenient maybe than some other member states but that’s up to them, they can do that," he said.
Mrs Merkel had urged members to "continue to be careful" as she pushed for a Europe-wide quarantine.
She said: "In Great Britain and Israel, who are further ahead with the vaccinations, we see strongly increasing incidence rates and we also see hospitalisations apparently increase with this variant.
“I can only continue to make a case to continue to be careful.”
Mr Macron supports Mrs Merkel's hardline approach to ban Britons, and insisted that EU states “stay vigilant” and “harmonise our rules on the matter of opening to third countries” like the UK.
Earlier this week, the government's green list was expanded to include more favoured holiday destinations, such as Malta and the party island of Ibiza.
But France and Germany remain on the amber list.
Should double-jabbed Brits be allowed to travel without quarantining?
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps claimed Brits would be free to travel across most of Europe if Brussels' vaccination programme was further ahead.
He said: “I think it’s understandable, if you’re in Germany and you have yet to reach the level of vaccination that we have seen here or in Malta, you are going to be more concerned. That may be just a question of waiting for their vaccination programme.’’
According to the government's coronavirus dashboard, nearly 44 million people in the UK have received their first dose, with 32 million being double-jabbed.
In comparison, according to World Health Organisation data, 68 million Germans have been jabbed, while in France nearly 49 million vaccines have been administered.
