PM APOLOGIZES FOR ‘MISTAKES’ DURING CRISIS

Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, has apologized to the country for mistakes made by his government as it has dealt with one of the world’s largest COVID-19 outbreaks, amid an increasingly hostile political atmosphere.

“I wish to apologize to citizens for our own mistakes, compelled at all times by the urgency of the situation, the shortage of resources, and the exceptional and unprecedented nature of the crisis and its huge proportions,” Sanchez said of a crisis that has led to more than 232,000 cases of coronavirus and close to 28,000 deaths in Spain.

In the face of increasing opposition, Sanchez on Wednesday asked congress to support a further extension of the state of emergency, in place since March 15.

Most of Spain is in “phase 1” of de-escalation, with a pair of two-week periods before people can move freely from one region to another.

Sanchez gained the backing of Ciudadanos, the centrist party, to reach a narrow majority, but he promised to study alternative legal ways of enforcing restrictions on movement for the remainder of the lockdown phase-out.

For the first time, the main conservative Popular Party joined the hard-right Vox in voting against the state of emergency.