The Last Furlong – “Final & Definitive” Extention Until 21st June.
A final extention of the “estado de alarma” is set to be introduced to the Cortes and see the controlled return to the “new normality” by 21st June.
The Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez announced today that he would be seeking a “final” extention of 2 more weeks of the emergency lockdown from parliament. The present extention previously approved finishes on June 7th.
The move will be in line with the 4 phase de-escalation plan that the Sanchez government is overseeing in conjunction with the 17 autonomous communidades.
On Monday 70% of Spain will be in phase 2. Madrid is presently in phase 1 and expected to move to phase 2 on June 8th The Madrid regional government led by Isabel Diaz Ayuso of the Partido Popular has been a vocal critic of the PSOE central government ´s handling of the coronavirus emergency.
Sanchez also announced that the regional authorities will have their powers restored for the phase 3 lockdown implementation. This would allow the Madrid government considerably more leeway in it´s strategy for the capital.
Sanchez, whose PSOE party lead the coalition government with Unidas Podermos lack a parliamentary majority but is undersood to have secured the necessary support for the extention proposal from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), and the abstention of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) who had previously voted against.
To date Spain has recorded 286,308 cases of Covid-19 of which 27,125 have died and 196,958 have recovered.