As the incidence of the coronavirus soars in practically the entire country, the legal instruments to deal with it are getting shorter and shorter.
The state of alarm, which allows mobility limitations and other fundamental rights, makes its way as the tool that both the Government and the autonomous communities are thinking about, which have sent their request to the Executive, including Asturias, Extremadura and the Basque Country.
Sánchez has shown his willingness to take strict measures because, he said, "the situation is serious" and "very hard months are coming."
Government sources confirm that the Executive is thinking about the state of alarm and the possibility that it will spread to all of Spain to varying degrees, but the president has not clarified whether this measure is conditioned by the support of the PP (which has not spoken now, but in general he has been reluctant to a new state of alarm) or if he is willing to enact it without his support.
Several communities (for the moment Castilla y León, Murcia, Andalusia and Valencia) have announced night curfews with an eye on the courts, which will have to authorize them.
Madrid has done something similar, limiting activity and meetings from midnight, but not movements.
The Basque Country and Melilla have been the first to formally request Pedro Sánchez for a new state of alarm to impose extraordinary measures and Asturias is preparing to do so this afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Government tries to reach agreements with parties and autonomies to receive the necessary support.
The Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu has specified that he requests the state of alarm for all of Spain and that the management of it remains in the hands of the presidents of the autonomous communities.
The president of Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara, has indicated that his community will send its request this afternoon.
"This is not to confine, it is to limit mobility," he said.
State of alarm is not synonymous with home confinement.
In fact, it is what the authorities try to avoid by all means with intermediate measures.
This is what the President of the Government has expressed in a speech that was very reminiscent of those he made in spring, during the first wave of the epidemic.
It has asked for unity, both from the Administrations and the citizens to avoid complete limitations of movements, but at the same time it has opened the door to a new state of alarm to take extraordinary measures in those places where the risk is extreme.
Health plans for days to establish a night curfew throughout the territory.
Minister Salvador Illa has asked for "clear support" to be able to do so.
This supposes the competition of the autonomies, which would be the ones that would apply it and sufficient support in the Congress of Deputies, which would have to vote in favor to be able to extend it once it is launched.
Ciudadanos has already offered their votes to approve the state of alarm and has asked the Popular Party to support it.
With the votes of the PNV and Ciudadanos, the coalition government would be very close to adding the majority in Congress, but the Executive would prefer to also have the support of the PP.
The president of the autonomous city of Melilla, Eduardo de Castro (Cs), has been the first to announce, this Friday, that he has requested in writing to the Government of the nation the application of the state of alarm to enable night confinement.
"The city is on the verge of sanitary collapse," he justified.
His project is to prohibit unjustified movements from 10 pm to 6 am, in application of article 11 of the law that regulates the state of alarm, "to prevent large bottles, private parties in homes, garages, etc."
Court pending
The lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, has appeared this Friday afternoon to announce his request and thus have legal protection for the new restrictions that he wants to implement in the Basque Country.
Urkullu requests that the state of alarm be extended to all of Spain.
The Basque presidency made the decision just 24 hours after learning that the Basque Superior of Justice did not authorize the most restrictive measures for citizens such as the prohibition of meeting in the private and public sphere, with more than six people.
That is precisely the problem that the autonomies face when imposing restrictive measures of fundamental rights (movement, assembly ...) without a state of alarm: they remain in the hands of the courts, which have not always established the same criteria.
They have allowed some confinements and have rejected others.
There is still no precedent for what they will do about the curfew.
At the expense of applying the state of alarm, some communities use decrees that must pass through their superior courts of justice.
Castilla y León was the first to formally request a curfew from the Government.
The president of the Board, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, has announced that they will impose it after a meeting with the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, with whom he has met this Friday.
Mañueco and Illa have insisted on the importance of this kind of "drastic" intervention.
The minister has stressed the need for consensus with the communities so that these restrictions can be applied throughout Spain and has explained that the state of alarm is the best legal mechanism to provide the relevant coverage if these curfews should last more than 15 days.
Illa has valued the inter-territorial Health Council held this Thursday, which resulted in agreements on fixed criteria for interpreting the levels of danger, but not in instructions for immediate implementation throughout Spain.
"It is an important step forward," he said, because it has served to set "common criteria for risk assessment and includes a catalog of action measures.
It is a common response framework ”.
Mañueco recalled the seriousness of the moment, which has led his community to act to request the limitation of night movement: "We cannot return to the dramatic situation of March and April, we must show that we have learned."
The regional legal services, he added, are working to implement this order as soon as possible and make it effective this weekend.
In addition to Castilla y León, the Valencian Community, Andalusia and Murcia will also apply curfews.
The regional government of the latter community is going to consult with the Superior Court of Justice on the legal possibility to do so, but it defends that the state of alarm is not necessary and that it can do so with the Public Health Law of 1986. For its part, the Andalusian Health Minister, Jesús Aguirre, said this Friday that he is considering expanding the curfew agreed for Granada and its metropolitan area to the entire region.
"If the increase in hospital pressure on beds and ICU persists, we will be forced to ask for a curfew for the entire community," he said in Canal Sur.
In spring, the state of alarm ended abruptly because the Government had increasingly difficult the support to carry out new extensions.
The Health plan required this legal tool at least until July 6, when the de-escalation phases were scheduled to end in all autonomous regions, but it ended on June 21.
This led some, like Madrid, to jump from phase 2 to the new normal.
It will be the agreement of the political forces that allows, or not, to re-apply the measure.
With information from
Virginia Vadillo, Pedro Gorospe
and
Javier Arroyo.
Information about the coronavirus
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- Guide to action against the disease