Spain may extend state of emergency over air controllers

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Madrid - The Spanish government was Tuesday considering the possibility of extending the state of emergency which has been in place since December 4 when striking air traffic controllers were forced to return to work.

The wildcat strike paralyzed Spanish airports and left some 600,000 passengers stranded. The government reacted by declaring a state of emergency, effectively placing the air traffic controllers under military law and threatening to jail them unless they returned to their posts.

The state of emergency is to remain in force until December 18. But the government is considering extending it to make sure the air controllers would not stage new work stoppages and block air traffic during the Christmas holiday period.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has called a cabinet meeting to discuss the eventual measure, which would have to be given the green light by parliament within 48 hours.

Infrastructure Minister Jose Blanco called on parliament to support a "permanent" normalization of the air traffic, without saying how exactly that would be done.

Blanco was expected to defend the extension of the state of emergency.

The Justice and Defense Ministries, however, were reportedly opposed to the preventative use of an emergency measure which had been adopted for the first time since Spain became a democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358080,state-emergency-air-controllers.html.