The Central Government's Energy Saving Plan comes into forces despite objections by regional governments headed by the main opposition party.

Government minister, Teresa Ribera said that they would “study all proposals” submitted before the 31st of August, but this would not stop the decree from coming into effect.

The decree is the Government’s move to comply with the EU objective for member states to reduce their consumption of gas by 7%.

What the regional leaders of Murcia, Andalucía, Galicia, Madrid and Castilla y León (all belonging to the PP) wanted was the elimination of Chapter One of Section Five of the decree which covers restriction on aircon within private businesses and public administrative buildings, including all lighting in shop windows to be turned off at 22.00h.

All of these leaders, including the Junta de Andalucía PM, Juanma Moreno, recognised that they had no other option other than to comply, save the PM for the Comunidad de Madrid, who announced that she would take it before the Tribunal Constitucional, as she considers that the decree “invades regional power.”

Minister Teresa Ribera did recognise, however, the “existence of doubts” concerning its application where small shops/offices and hostelry establishments are concerned, which would have difficulty adapting their premises to the new norms. She said, nevertheless, that the decree has sufficient flexibility to apply “common sense” in such cases.

“Despite lies propagated about the decree, it takes into consideration that workers’ health comes before thermostat control,” she said, clarifying, “it’s not the same for an office worker to somebody working around ovens.”

So, what is it all about? First of all, you cannot set your aircon lower than 27ºC in your office or shop, nor in the case of administrative buildings such as a town halls, for example.

But it goes much further and covers, bus and train stations and airports, hotels, cultural buildings (casas de cultura, museums, etc).

Shops and shopping centres have to switch off shop-window displays and all public buildings that have closed for the day have to turn off facade lighting at 22.00h.

The exceptions are hospital, schools, hairdressers, laundrettes, gyms and public transport (taxis, buses, trains, aircraft, etc). Hotel rooms are not included in this temperature restriction as they are considered “private domain;” i.e., the same as a person’s home. Another concession is that bars and restaurants can set their aircon at 25ºC.

Another point to be taken into consideration is that shops, etc whose entrance is onto the streets, cannot have the door permanently open with the aircon on inside.

When winter comes and it is the turn of heating, then the ambient temperature cannot surpass 19ºC

Finally, as for fines, establishments that break these restrictions can face up to 60,000 euros in fines for minor infractions and up to 6-million euros for serious infractions, once the decree comes into effect this Wednesday, the 10th.

(News: Spain)