Marina Artusa
05/23/2020 - 15:36
- Clarín.com
- World
Between mourning and protest. This is how Spain began the weekend in which all its territories bid farewell to Phase Zero of the transition plan towards the uncertainty in which we will live until the vaccine arrives that drives away the Covid-19 epidemic.
Starting Monday, 53 percent of Spaniards will already be in Phase One, with permission to sit down for a drink outdoors and meet up to ten friends or family. The remaining 47 percent will go to Phase Two, which allows, without crossing the border of the province itself, to go to the beach.
The horns of the protest caravan organized by the far-right party Vox were still cupping the heat in several Spanish cities when President Pedro Sánchez spoke to citizens this Saturday, as he has been doing every weekend since the state of alarm was decreed, on March 14, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Starting Monday we will all be able to meet again with family, with friends, within our own province in which we live, after weeks of forced separation," Sánchez began to celebrate that all of Spain is advancing, although at different speeds, in the plan of lack of confidence . “The hardest thing has happened. The most difficult is behind us, "he stressed.
And he confirmed that the country will be in mourning for the more than 28,000 people who died here from the epidemic: "Starting on Tuesday, when the entire national territory is in Phase One, the government of Spain will approve a formal declaration of official mourning in everything our country in memory of the victims of the Covid-19 -said Sánchez-. The duel will last ten days, the longest official mourning in the history of our democracy. ”
There will be a ceremony, when all the autonomous communities are about to reach the final locker of the opening tour in phases, which will be chaired by King Felipe VI.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced that since July foreign tourism is reopening in the country. / DPA
For the people of Madrid it will be the second official mourning they have lived since the health crisis caused by the coronavirus epidemic punishes Spain. With the highest number of deaths from Covid-19, the Community of Madrid decreed it in late March, when the deceased were around 3,000.
Since then, the flags of public buildings have been at half-mast and every noon, at twelve o'clock, in the Puerta del Sol there is a minute of silence that then gives way to a fragment of the sad Adagio for Strings.
In Madrid there were also right-wing marches against the socialist government's policy regarding the coronavirus. / EFE
Football and tourism
Sánchez's words with which many Spaniards had lunch this Saturday as background music also brought announcements of the most varied variety: the president said that some 850,000 households will receive the minimum living wage that the Council of Ministers will approve next week - " A historic measure in our democracy so that no one is left behind ”-; International tourism will be able to return to Spain from July, and a good one for soccer fans: on June 8, the professional league returns.
"The week of June 8 in which, if all goes well, Phase Three will begin in much of Spain, the resumption of major professional sports competitions and, in particular, the professional football league, will be authorized," said the President.
On tourism, the activity that contributes 12.5 percent of the Spanish Gross Domestic Product and which has been dying since the European spring began, Sánchez passed the warning: “Spain has been waiting for you since July. Whoever visits Spain can count on stepping on a land with a sanitary guarantee and also committed to the sustainability of our planet ”.
"Spain receives more than 80 million visitors every year," he said. For this reason, I announce that from July onwards, the entry of foreign tourism to Spain in safe conditions will resume. Foreign tourists can already plan their vacations in our country. ”
The demonstration called by the far right party Vox, in the Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid. / EFE
While the president spoke on tevé, in some neighborhoods leaflets with his image and a legend were distributed: "Tourism, better without Sánchez".
Right protests
The center of Madrid was still bottled with the "government resignation caravan" organized by Vox in fifty provincial capitals to repudiate the management of the epidemic that Pedro Sánchez and his ministers are doing.
The quarantine is moving towards a new phase in Madrid. Last week you can go to the bars on the sidewalk. / AFP
"On May 23, the Spaniards will demand in the streets in a safe way for health that the Liberty Phase begins and that the government resign from lies, unemployment and misery," said Vox president Santiago Abascal, who carries weeks asking for the resignation of the Executive and the creation of an emergency government.
In Madrid, the parade of cars, some convertibles and with Spanish flags, left the Paseo de Recoletos and overflowed the Puerta de Alcalá, which continues in mourning with a black crepe.
What is Coronavirus? How is it spread and what are its symptoms?
Watch the specialAbascal and the main leaders of his party led the march from a micro equal to the homeless tourists who tour the city that longs for foreign visitors.
He was advancing at the pace of a man and honking as the opponents of the right-wing demonstration viralized a video on the networks in which the caravan calling for the resignation of the government did not give way to an ambulance.
Hundreds of Spaniards protest against Pedro Sánchez with the noise of saucepans and pots every day , at nine o'clock at night, from their balconies. In some neighborhoods, as in Madrid's Salamanca, they go down to the street and shout "Assassin!", "Resignation!".
But until now, in the two and a half months that Spain has been experiencing a health crisis due to the epidemic, only Vox organized a demonstration that some wanted to associate with that February 2019 call in which the Abascal force, the Popular Party and Citizens filled Plaza de Colón in Madrid to ask Sánchez, who had been at the Moncloa Palace for eight and a half months after having evicted Mariano Rajoy with a motion of censure, to resign. There was no pandemic or the almost 30 thousand deaths that Spain mourns today. They managed to get Pedro Sánchez to call early elections, which, even with the three rights united against him, ended up winning socialism.
Madrid. Correspondent