Anyone who has visited Madrid or Seville, especially in the summer, knows the scene: all around At 10:30pm there are still many families in the restaurantseven with young children, and postreAnd for dessert, there was practically no trace on the tables. Dinner times in Spain have moved forward significantly Compared to the European average but now after the second sentences Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, it is also an internal state. The founder and leader of Somar, the majority government party that is certainly more left-wing than the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, denounced the attack on National habit of leaving restaurants open until 1 a.m.: “It's crazy.”

Many have criticized the minister, starting with trade associations. one of these, España de Nochereported by El Pais,He criticized Diaz's words Explain how to make a decision Expect restaurants and nightclubs to be closed Must be a result of «in working hours, range Peak time TV, news and movie times, or mall schedules.” Even on the political level there was no shortage of attacks: Isabel Ayuso, President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid (the equivalent of our region) and one of the leading figures in the People's Party at the national level, denounced the words of one of the three deputies of the Spanish Prime Minister. «Spain – wrote on the X – has The best nightlife in the worldThe streets are full of life and freedom. And also business. They want the puritans, the materialists, the socialists, the soulless, the lightless and the restaurantless because that's what they want. Bored and at home».

Minister Diaz did not back down Conversely, he explained the context of his thinking. In Ayuso specifically, he accused her of “frivolity,” and replied, “They seem to have forgotten that as of 10 p.m. we enter the night period and therefore they have certainty.” Mental health risks And I should have a different salary.” In short, for her, this is not an ideological issue but related to the health and rights of workers, adding that “it is not normal for meetings to be called at eight o’clock in the evening in Spain.”

But why do people eat dinner so late in Spain? The reason is historical: despite being west of the Greenwich meridian, after the abandonment of the time of Great Britain and Portugal, it was in Same time zone as Central Europe (France, Germany, Italy, etc.). It was the decision of the dictator at the time Francisco Franco who wanted to please Adolf Hitler by annexing Madrid to Berlin. This choice, if at the time it brought geopolitical “advantages”, in the following decades it doomed the Spaniards to live a day in which time was more separated from the solar cycle due to the geographical position of the country. With the daily consequences that led, in fact, to Delaying times to try to align your biological clock with standard time.