Ex-pat Business Owners on Spain’s Costa del Sol Furious after hearing UK Considers Removing Quarantine for Portugal

Business owners on Spain's Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca blame Boris for their financial disasters. image: Stock Photo

British business owners on Spain’s Costa del Sol close to bankruptcy feel ‘ignored and abandoned’ after the Uk government are in talks with Portugal about removing the quarantine rules.

Brits may be able to grab a quarantine-free holiday to Portugal by end of summer if talks go ahead as planned- a move that has caused outrage among the Ex-pat business owners on Spain’s Costa del Sol.

Peter Hinds, a food and drinks supplier from Malaga, was fuming on the news, he said: “What is the bl**dy UK government trying to do to us? don’t we exist anymore? I have a family to keep and a business to run, we are on our last legs just like thousands of business owners here in Andalucia”.

“I used to be out all day delivering food and drinks to bars and restaurants in a 50-kilometre radius, now il lucky to do three deliveries a day! I had to fire the other drivers, which was heartbreaking as I’ve known them and their families since I came here twenty years ago. Cant the UK gov read? This region has one of the lowest rates of coronavirus in Spain, lower than the Uk even!”.

“Each country gains when holidaymakers come here, if they don’t come here they will go elsewhere then we lose every way. Imagine what would happen if we all leave to go back to the UK, we would soon be claiming from the DWP, England would be much worse off! I have to make a decision this month and one that will affect my family for the rest of our lives. I have already taken my daughter out of private school, even the English College she was attending has laid teachers off and is on the brink of closing.”

“I have put the two vans up for sale but have no takers yet- people just haven’t got the money as no-one is working. I’m basically giving my stock away just to keep the cash flowing but the problem starts when i have to reorder from my distributor. They cannot tell me a date when they will deliver again due to the possibilities of the borders closing again. It’s all started a chain-reaction and i need to get out asap back to Hull to stay with my mum and dad who are elderly pensioners. Ridiculous!!”.

Portugals figures.

Portugal yesterday registered three more deaths and 290 new cases of infection by covid-19, according to the daily bulletin of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS).

According to the DGS report on the epidemiological situation, since the beginning of the pandemic until today, there have been 52,351 confirmed cases of infection and 1,746 deaths, three of which in the Lisbon region in the last 24 hours.

The Lisbon and Tagus Valley region today totals 26,928 cases of covid-19, 208 more than on Thursday, representing 51.4 percent of the total new cases. In percentage terms, in the last 24 hours the increase in the number of confirmed cases was 0.6 percent (from 52,061 to 52,351) and the death rate remained at 0.2 percent.

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Tony Winterburn

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