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ARCHIVED - No second national lockdown or state of alarm says Spanish PM
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez reiterated his offer to the Autonomous Regions to use the tool of the state of alarm to resolve Covid issues at a local level.
- The Prime Minister called for "Institutional unity and individual responsibility to avoid new infections" and reiterated his determination NOT to call a second national state of emergency/alarm.
- He reiterated his offer that should a second wave so require, regional governments will have the option to request a localised state of emergency with co-governance and the Armed Forces have trained a pool of 2,000 contact tracers which are available to the regional governments who request their skills and assistance.
After his Government came under considerable political attack about the measures in place to help regional governments combat Covid-19 during his recent vacations, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stated his position at a press conference following a meeting of the Council of Ministers on Tuesday.
Covid case numbers in Spain have been rising steadily since the end of the state of alarm, fuelled by a number of factors and circumstances.
Although the country successfully brought numbers right down during the lockdown and effectively stalled the virus, resuming freedom of movement after three months of virtual economic paralysis had once again given the virus an environment in which to prosper, as young people celebrated their renewed mobility, setting off a chain of contagions in the domestic environment which has proven impossible to stop.
This co-incided with the spring harvest season, during which groups of agricultural workers moved from region to region harvesting and planting crops, their mobility and close contact living conditions fuelling a second chain of contagions.
This was supported and exacerbated by the leisure and tourism sectors, determined to “have their summer season” at any cost, the result being a third spiral of infections fuelled by night-clubs, family fiestas, groups of friends gathering to celebrate weddings, birthdays and sociable occasions, and conglomerations of young people in private parties, nocturnal leisure venues and drinking clubs.
The result; a significant climb in case numbers which has brought the summer holiday season crashing to an agonising halt as country after country imposed restrictions and quarantines on travellers from Spain, or in some cases, banned them altogether.
El Gobierno fortalecerá la capacidad de las CC.AA. con la puesta a disposición de los medios legales existentes. Todas las autonomías pondrán utilizar la herramienta legal del estado de alarma y la posibilidad de solicitar al Ejecutivo su declaración en sus territorios. pic.twitter.com/3JTjDxC62f
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) August 25, 2020
The country spent 3 months in which the 17 regional and national governments shared an uneasy bed together, with the Prime Minister maintaining sole charge but only with the reluctant agreement of his bedmates. Towards the end of the confinement he struggled to gain agreement for his stance that lockdowns must be maintained until the figures had reached a sufficiently low point for the virus to be considered as under control, each request to extend the state of alarm met with increasingly mutinous distrust from regional governments who wanted to regain their own powers and get hold of affairs in their own local regions by the scruff of the neck. Had he requested one further period of confinement, he would probably have been shot down in a full-scale mutiny, but the agreement held until the end of the agreed period, at which time power and control returned to the 17 regional governments and the national Government limited its intervention to a series of basic measures such as the obligation to wear a mask when using public transport or inside public buildings and shops, and a co-ordinating róle within the health service.
The 17 autonomous regions bounced off like newly sheared sheep as soon as they could, Catalonia immediately throwing mobility restrictions out of the window before the rest of Spain, allowing its residents to move around freely without restriction and criticising the central Government handling of the crisis. Galicia became the first region to declare itself free from the state of emergency and the Balearic and Canary Islands opened their doors to tourists a full two weeks before other regions even came out of the de-escalalation process.
At this point, regardless of their political inclinations, none of the regions wanted to hand any level of control back to the central government, were happy just to stick in the odd political dart of criticism whenever the opportunity presented itself, and regain control, happy to be able to blame the Government for the inevitable economic crisis which has yet to unfold.
It wasn´t long before the outbreaks became more widespread and the regional governments soon found themselves facing the same common problems; lack of legislation to confine other than by a judicial order, lack of power to enforce movement restrictions which were contrary to the Spanish constitution, lack of power to impose sanctions on those breaching quarantine and a population that although subdued when muzzled by the confinement order reverted to type as a Mediterranean party animal when unconfined, and indulged in a summer of botellón drinking parties which failed to respect the local regulations imposed by the regional governments, thus exacerbating the spread of the virus.
It wasn´t long before the PP opposition was suggesting that the national government resume control of the regional health services to enable a co-ordination of resources (and a good share of the blame when the situation deteriorated further) but the PM resisted and held his ground, insisting that the regional governments were doing an excellent job on their own, taking decisions at a local level which meant they were responsible for the situations in their own regions and national intervention was unnecessary (and they would get the political blame when the party ended….).
The regional governments gradually imposed measures to halt the spread of the virus, copying the initiatives of one another, the wearing of masks a perfect example which began in Catalonia as its own local outbreaks worsened and spread to every region.
Finally, the regional governments agreed a bank of measures which would be implemented nationally in a co-ordinated gesture, closing night clubs, banning smoking within 2 metres etc, and the regional governments were left to integrate the measures into their own local legisalation and enforce them at regional level.
Madrid, however, hit a problem, when a judge ruled that the regional government lacked the constitutional power to successfully impose the measures, a ruling which is currently being appealed, giving Madrid ammunition to repeat its calls for the national Government to design legislation at a national level to resolve these common issues.
Obviously, after the state of alarm ended, none of the regional governments wanted to consider any level of confinement, but with the situation now deteriorating, the speech today focused principally on this issue.
The Prime Minister emphasised that he has no intention of declaring a second state of energency at a national level, but reiterated the willingness of the Government to assist the Autonomous Communities to declare a state of alarm within their territories, without the need for the Executive to establish it throughout the national territory at the same time.
Article 5 of the Organic Law of 1981 that regulates the state of alarm indicates that "when the cases referred to in the preceding article exclusively affect all or part of the territorial scope of an Autonomous Community, the President of the same may request the Government to declare a state of alarm" and attend a session of Congress to justfy the request.
Sánchez accepted today that the “situation is not the best”, but believes that with these measures it is possible to get the pandemic under control again, saying that this "had already been achieved" a few months ago "when the data was worse."
He reiterated that this mechanism is not a return to the lockdowns of the first state of emergency, but a multi-faceted mechanism which creates controlled phases to manage the virus.
"The harsh confinement" to which Spain was subjected "was successful", but he did not want to consider the possibility of a second confinement in the coming months. What he did want to explain today is his opinion that the fight against covid-19 must be based on two fundamental pillars: "Institutional unity and individual responsibility to avoid new infections."
He also reiterated the importance of complying wth hygienic and regional measures to halt the spread of the virus.
With the school year due to begin on September 3rd, all attention must now be focused on getting children safely back to school in a “presencial fashion”, ie not at home in a virtual school but back into the classroom.
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