Businesses, department stores and state-owned buildings face doubts on the first day of the Royal Decree's entry into force.

The sources consulted by EL MUNDO used yesterday afternoon that the wording of the text was not clear and, therefore, they had doubts about when they should turn off the lighting.

"We didn't know if we should do it at 00:01 yesterday or at 22:00 tomorrow," explains a businessman from Oviedo.

Thus, there were several Spanish town halls that chose to bring forward the shutdown of their buildings to avoid the possible consequences of a breach.

The most striking case is that of the town hall of Palma de Mallorca, which began this Monday to apply the lighting measures in the cathedral and the town hall.

Other enclaves, such as Oviedo or Getafe, also implemented the measures before the entry into force of the Royal Decree;

specifically, at 22:00 on Tuesday.

In the private sector, especially in small businesses, they are also not clear when the measure should begin to be applied.

Not even the two large associations of freelancers in the country, ATA and UPTA, agree on the time they think it should happen.

Regarding the temperature of the air conditioning, which in summer should not drop below 27 degrees, the Spanish supermarkets have confirmed to EL MUNDO that they will maintain a temperature of 27 degrees in offices and 25 in shopping spaces.

Leroy Merlin, for example, points out that "in the establishments it will be 25 degrees and in the offices 27, we will monitor the humidity in real time with instruments that we already had before announcing the Royal Decree and we will turn off the windows at 10:00 p.m."

Within the banking sector, only Caixabank and Banco Santander went ahead and announced yesterday afternoon that they would turn off the signs of their offices from Tuesday at 10:00 p.m.

Train stations, buses and airports will also have to adapt their thermostats and lighting controls starting this Wednesday.

The temperature of the air conditioning must not be below 27 degrees and the windows of the shops that are on such platforms must comply with the regulations and turn off their lights at 10:00 p.m.

The interior of buses, trains and planes are exempt from temperature control.

"a fudge"

The self-employed have doubts about the effectiveness of these measures and, above all, if they will be enough.

UPTA recognizes the little energy impact they will have: "It will not have any type of reflection on small businesses because it is not open at 10 at night," explains Abad.

The fault, he says, lies with Europe, which has decided to take action and "counteract" the economic blackmail for Russian gas.

Of all, as a sector, the self-employed clean their hands: "The self-employed are not the cause of energy consumption problems," argues Abad.

They insist that it will not influence small businesses or public safety, since "crimes will not increase because the windows are off."

In what both associations agree is that the measures have been carried out without counting on them in a Royal Decree that generates "a lot of legal insecurity", according to Lorenzo Amor, president of ATA.

The leader also denounces that it is not known who will fine or what will happen to certain sectors, and how these differences will be regulated: "The temperature is limited by sectors and collides with the labor regulations of, for example, the temperature of the hotel and restaurant industry, which must be between 17 to 25 degrees centigrade".

Love, in any case, is very hard on the measure.

"We are not criticizing the fact that energy is saved, but the ways in which this botched job has been done," explained the president of ATA.

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