Spain will reopen its frontiers with EU countries on 21 June, earlier than originally announced.

Prime minister Pedro Sánchez informed regional presidents in their weekly Sunday morning meeting of a series of new dates on the country's journey into a new normal.

The government, under pressure from the European Commission, has recitifed and brought forward the opening of frontiers originally set for 1 July.

This will allow tourism to help kickstart the recovery of the country's economy, albeit under the shadow of possible new outbreaks of the virus. It shows the great dilemma of this crisis: finding the balance between health and GDP.

Sánchez warned that the "threat of the pandemic is not over", but described the government's plan to ease lockdown as a "success". "The figures are better than I imagined," said the prime minister.

The borders with Portugal will remain closed until 1 July, however, at the request of the neighbouring government.

The British Embassy in Madrid announced in a Tweet on Monday that the Spanish government had confirmed that the UK is included in the group of countries to which border relaxations on 21 June will apply.

With regard to the arrival of tourists from third countries outside the Schengen area, a "list of safe countries" is to be drawn up. Three criteria will be taken into account: the state of the epidemic in that country, reciprocity and health controls. This system will start to operate on 1 July.

The arrival of overseas tourists reopens the debate over the threat of imported cases of the illness. The government said it was sure that new outbreaks would be detected, but at the same time had confidence in the health service's abilty to detect cases early.