ARCHIVED - Semana Santa restrictions across Spain will not be changed at the last minute

The curfew will continue as it is and border controls will be strengthened to prevent movement between regions

The Wednesday meeting of the Interterritorial Council, which draws together respresentatives from all of the health authorities of the 17 regions of Spain, concluded without agreeing any change to the restrictions already announced for Easter week.

Since the beginning of the week, when it became obvious that the rate of contagions in Spain was starting to rise again, there had been discussions between members of the Ministry of Health and the regional governments of Spain to discuss whether last-minute changes should be made to the restrictions already agreed, which will come into force from Thursday evening onwards and continue until April 4th.

Principal amongst these was the proposal to bring the curfew forward to 20:00 in the evening in order to minimise the risk of contacts occurring when members of the public gather in groups, something which is likely to happen in the bars and restaurants of Spain.

However, the regional governments were decidedly against this proposal, the need to support the hostelry sector outweighing concerns about the rate of contagion and it has been decided that no changes will be made to the conditions already agreed.

The regional governments do have the discretion to make changes to the restrictions applied in their own regions, as has already occurred in the Murcia region where the government has over-ridden the limitation on six people gathering and reduced it to four and has also prohibited private gatherings in the home environment; the rules agreed nationally had allowed six people to gather and four in the home environment.

The principal measure all regions remain keen to enforce is the perimeter closure of regional borders, and the Minister for the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, also attended the meeting to inform that 62,400 members of the Policia Nacional and Guardia Civíl would be working during the week, with particular attention on enforcing border closures to try and prevent movement between regions.
In some regions , such as Andalucía, internal provincial borders are also closed for the holiday period.

Each region has control of its own regional restrictions and should there be any changes, these will be announced at regional level.

Contagion rates are now starting to rise in Spain again and across Europe measures have been tightened amidst fears that a fourth wave of infections is imminent, with a surge in cases recently in key European states.