Spain’s shining light defies eco blackout laws
Rules forcing businesses in Madrid to go dark at night would be against common sense, says firebrand leader
MADRID’S shopkeepers and bar owners are toasting the capital’s firebrand leader as she goes back into battle with Spain’s socialist government.
“Isabel is a 10 out of 10. She looks out for us Madrileños,” said Marta Fernández, manager of the café-bar Dixie on the Plaza Santa Cruz.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Right-wing president of the capital’s regional government, earned cult status after she freed Madrid from lockdown before any other Spanish city last year.
Now, “Saint Isabel” has refused to enforce new energy-saving rules forcing businesses to turn off exterior lights at 10pm and impose temperature limits on air conditioning and heating in offices, bars and shops.
“Madrid will not be switching off,” said Ms Diaz Ayuso just minutes after the rules, aimed at reducing Spain’s use of Russian gas, were announced.
“Those people in the government live like lords and then make us do things that go against common sense,” said Ms Fernandez.
“People don’t like being treated like idiots and being told what to do. You can’t paralyse a country every time there is some kind of crisis; now it’s Ukraine and gas, but there will be another one after that.”
Susana, who runs a jewellery shop, said: “I admire her. She fought so that we could keep working. I mean, what bright spark thinks up these rules? You cannot turn everything off in the centre of Madrid with the trade we have here; you can’t treat all cities alike.”
Ms Díaz Ayuso has managed to morph from a figure of ridicule to arguably the country’s most powerful electoral asset in the space of three years by choosing, and winning, a series of bloody political battles.
The 43-year-old was once mocked for questioning a low emissions zone in Madrid by arguing that traffic jams were part of the capital’s identity; now she is seen as someone with a canny knack for channelling popular sentiment.
Her anti-lockdown stance during the pandemic changed her image from that
‘People don’t like being treated like idiots and being told what to do every time there is some sort of crisis’
of a gaffe-prone, underperforming leader of the Popular Party in Madrid to a new star of the Right capable of winning 45 per cent of the vote in a snap election she called in 2021.
Lockdowns are “paternalistic” and inherently “Left-wing”, she told The Daily Telegraph last November. Three months later, she forced the People’s Party to change leader after accusing senior officials of spying and blackmailing her with corruption allegations.
After months of behind-the-scenes rivalry between Ms Díaz Ayuso and Pablo Casado, the People’s Party leader at the time, she went public with the spying accusation and within a week he was forced to resign.
Now, Ms Díaz Ayuso has started a new war. “Before closing down, banning and switching off, why not have an adult conversation with citizens and other levels of government to ask for their co-operation on the basis of clear criteria?” she said.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, accused Ms Díaz Ayuso of being “selfish” and “lacking solidarity” in the face of “Putin’s blackmail”.
The government’s plan is designed to help the country cut gas consumption by 7 per cent under an EU energy-saving agreement in case Mr Putin turns off the taps to Europe this winter.
The law will be applied across the country on Tuesday but it falls to regional authorities to enforce it.
Enrique Ossorio, Madrid’s vice president, said the city was considering appealing against the law.
“If a shop window light is turned off for 10 seconds, this satisfies the law,” Mr Ossorio said, seemingly inciting Madrid’s shopkeepers to flout the rule.
However, Pedro Mora, owner of Mayorpiel, a leatherware store, plans to follow the government edicts.
He is installing automatic doors in his air conditioned shop to abide by rules insisting entrances are not left open.
“These rules might not be perfect but the law is there to be obeyed,” he said.
“Ayuso talks a lot about freedom and businesses but we’ve had zero help from her regional government.”