Emergency extension requested

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed on Sunday to the country’s Regional Presidents that he will request a sixth and final two-week extension to the state of emergency. The Congress of Deputies will vote on the measure on Wednesday June 3rd, and if it receives the support of delegates, the emergency measures will be in place until June 21.

The coalition government lacks a working majority in the Congress of Deputies, and will have to rely on support from other parties to extend the state of alarm. On Saturday, it emerged that the executive has reached a deal with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which will vote in favour of the extension, according to sources from the group. Meanwhile, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) will abstain at the vote in Spain’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday, after voting against the last two extensions. This should ensure the vote is carried.

Parties are mostly to blame for new outbreaks of coronavirus in Spain

A number of social gatherings have put the health authorities on alert, in Lleida a single celebratory party has actually caused the healthcare area to remain in Phase 1 of the de-escalation plan

“An innocent party can end up with an outbreak,” Fernando Simón, the Director of the Health Ministry’s Coordination Centre for Health Alerts warned this week. But some of the cases were not so innocent and occurred after clear violations of the de-escalation rules. This is why the Spanish authorities have been constantly calling on citizens not to drop their guard and to stick closely to the regulations of each phase. “If we are not all already in the new normality it’s for a reason,” said Simón.

In the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, currently in Phase 2, a number of parties – one of which is thought to have been attended by 80 people – even threatened seeing the city returning to Phase 0,

There have also been new outbreaks related to the agriculture and meat industry. In Totana, Murcia, there have been a number of cases involving day labourers, meaning that the municipality has remained in Phase 1 while the rest of the south-eastern region has moved to Phase 2.