Government agrees to discuss 8.00pm curfew time

Pressure from the autonomous communities, particularly in the mainland, has forced the Government to open a debate that it didn’t have on its agenda for the Inter-territorial Council meeting tomorrow (Wednesday), which is the possibility making the curfew under the state of alarm earlier, from 10pm to 8pm.

This does not mean that an eight o’clock curfew will be automatically implemented, but that regional Governments will have the facility to use it if they want to without having to make a special request or decree to do so.

So far, Madrid, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Galicia, Cantabria and the Basque Country have positioned themselves in favour of the change, after Castilla y León put this measure in place on Saturday when it was published in the Official Gazette of Castilla y León (BOCYL), despite the rejection shown by the Central Government.

The Minister of Territorial Policy, Carolina Darias, confirmed last night, Monday, that the Inter-territorial Council will debate the proposal, saying "we must address any suggestions that can improve our battle against the pandemic," and recalled that at the last week’s meeting, three autonomous communities had already requested it. She added that Castilla y León need to stick with the rest of the regions as “unilateral decisions lead us nowhere, whereas consensus decisions lead us to save lives, we need a minimum understanding between communities."

Until now, the most reluctant to extend the curfew has been the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, who yesterday again asked the regions to exhaust all possible measures before requesting new ones including an extension of the state of alarm that would allow adopting other restrictions, saying that the initiatives contemplated by the current state of alarm are "sufficient", although he remains flexible and called the debate to the Inter-territorial Council. "There is no closure, the Government will listen," he said.