New law is passed to maintain no smoking in public areas

The Ministry of Health is being accused of imposing a kind of “covert state of alarm” by opposition parties because national bans, such as smoking in public, are being imposed after Spain has been reprimanded by the European Union for failing to update its 2006 anti-tobacco law for more than a decade.

Salvador Illa's announcement that he would make a new Anti-Smoking Law as soon as he became head of the Ministry of Health in February 2020, to “expand smoke-free spaces”, was never carried out.

However it became a recommendation in the regulations against Covid-19, "without debate and out of obligation," despite the fact that "they talk to us about co-governance, but then they impose the measures on us from the central government... yes, when contagions rise, they point to each territory ”, say the opposing political parties.

The Anti-Smoking Law entered into force on January 1st 2006, and was modified five years later to prohibit smoking "in all closed public spaces", although it allowed to do so in outdoor places, such as hotel terraces, provided they were fully open air.

As of today, this is no longer the case: the Health decree that has reunited the CCAA of the PP with the separatist partners of the Pedro Sánchez Government, and even several socialist regions, prohibits smoking outdoors and will remain in effect for the duration of the pandemic.