In certain positions the air may be at 25 degrees. /
energy saving plan
The minister specifies that the measures will be applied with “flexibility” and has distinguished between sedentary and active jobs
Four days after the royal decree that includes the measures of the central government’s energy saving plan comes into force, the Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, has clarified this Friday that bars and restaurants may limit the use of the air conditioning “around 25 degrees”, in accordance with the recommendations of the labor legislation.
Ribera has clarified that 27 degrees will be applied “with the corresponding flexibility”, as requested by the Basque Government, and has given as an example that kitchens, discos or gyms, where constant physical activity is carried out, require temperatures different from the from other spaces, such as a bookstore.
“You cannot ask workers who are in conditions of significant physical exercise not to have the conditions that labor law guarantees with respect to maximum and minimum temperatures,” the minister assured in an interview on Onda Cero, in which she explained that establishments must justify when they do not apply the temperature limit of 27 degrees, a “flexibility” incorporated in the decree law to protect the occupational health rights of their workers.
The minister has distinguished sedentary jobs, which work in an office for example, from active jobs, such as waiters or cooks in a restaurant. “The decree law itself incorporates a call that wherever there are spaces where workers have to move and have physical exercise, it must be applied with the corresponding flexibility,” the minister clarified about the variation of the initial thermostat.
Precisely, this morning the Basque Minister for Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment, Arantxa Tapia, has asked for “flexibility” for the application of the royal decree. The counselor has assured in a radio interview that “we will accept the law”, but she has recognized that the Basque Government “would have liked us to have been heard before”. In any case, Tapia has expressed the full willingness of the Executive of Urkullu to collaborate with the central Executive in the application of energy saving measures, for which, as he has indicated, he has recently held a conversation with the third vice president Teresa Ribera « from the utmost loyalty and sincerity.
These statements by Tapia come hours after the Lehendakari settled on Thursday the tension that had arisen in recent days between Lakua and the central government as a result of the energy saving plan. Urkullu confirmed that since it is a royal decree, the Basque Country will comply with the law and distanced himself from the resistance of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, who has turned her response speech into a battering ram of opposition to Pedro’s Cabinet Sanchez. However, Urkullu also slipped his discomfort for not having been consulted on this matter by the central Administration.