Even though improvisation and rectification have been the essential constants of the Spanish government since the pandemic moved in with us, and although it is of little use now to regret those mistakes and the arrogance shown by Pedro Sánchez's executive, we are now beginning to see that this lack of foresight will also accompany us after the departure from Phase Three, in the arrival of tourism and in the resumption of mobility between autonomous communities. The concept of a “new normality” thus begins to make sense: no one knows at all how we will end up doing things and it all depends on the latest invention of the minister in charge.
The single command has these things and the tacky co-governance has not changed the focus of decisions much. This Thursday, the Spanish industry and tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, had no better idea than to release the news, in a meeting with foreign correspondents, that Spain planned to open its land borders with Portugal and France on 22nd June. Land only, not sea or air, whose current closures are lifted on July 1st. Hours of chaos, uncertainty in the tourism sector, annoyance from Portugal over how they had heard the news, for it all to end up with an "explanatory" note from the Spanish government returning everything to the starting point. The new normality has also found its terminology in the current chaos and thus corrections are now called explanatory notes.
It would be desirable for the Spanish government to stop playing cat and mouse when there are, hanging in the air, hundreds of thousands of jobs dependent on tourism, which is experiencing a stress unimaginable outside the sector and does not know very well when to open, how to open and if it will be worthwhile to open. No one expects this government to present a reactivation plan like chancellor Merkel has done in Germany which is the most important since those that followed World War II. With two fundamental aspects: it can be set in motion already because the Germans are paying for it themselves and not awaiting foreign aid; and the old austerity recipe has faded into the newspaper archive, with the reactivation coming from tax cuts to favour consumption and an investment of 4% of GDP, the equivalent of 130 billion euros, generating deficit.
We know that we're not Germans and will have to wait for what Europe decides, but we do at least have the ability to count the dead we have and not make corrections every day to the decisions approved the day before in Brussels. If we did these things, perhaps someone would take us a little seriously. And one last comment that does not have just a single recipient: the issue of the return to school in September must begin to be one of the concerns of all governments. There are a little more than three months left but if it is not one hundred percent right, the repercussions will be very serious inside and outside the school environment.