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  • Economy: This is how Madrid plans to de-escalate the Covid-19: temperature chambers and terrace expansion

The Madrid City Council continues to take steps in its plan towards the economic reactivation of the capital with the hospitality sector as the main axis in this first phase. And there the terraces in the restaurant premises play a fundamental role to guarantee "the security" of the clients and the survival of the businesses, as indicated by Deputy Mayor Begoña Villacís.

At the gates of the meeting between the municipal government and hoteliers, which will take place tomorrow Friday, Villacís announced this Thursday that the City Council will extend the period of terraces , which the ordinance establishes between March 31 and October 31. According to sources consulted by EL MUNDO, the intention of the municipal government is that this expansion be until the end of the year . "It is a possibility that we contemplate so that they can recover what has been lost in these months, but it must be combined with neighborhood rest," they affirm in Cibeles.

That is the first point that the municipal corporation has already closed and that it will join a 25% reduction in the rate from the terraces to the premises. "We cannot charge those who do not charge," said the deputy mayor, who has also stressed that the City Council is already returning the money from those businesses that have paid the fee and have not been able to use the terraces before the decreed closure by the alarm state.

What has not yet materialized in Cibeles, but is in the "study phase", is the expansion of the space of these terraces and their hours . The mayor already pointed out yesterday that both situations "can arise" as long as "the rest of the neighbors is not harmed". A line that has followed this Thursday its number two when pointing out that the government team is working on "rethinking the public space" in Madrid to "make it more attractive".

At this point, the deputy mayor has also delved into other sectors that are not the hospitality industry and on which modifications are being studied in the face of her return to activity. As examples he has indicated that florists can put flowers on the streets for sale or that bakeries take their windows to the sidewalks . Two circumstances that "the ordinance does not allow at the moment," said Villacís.

To carry out all these variations, the municipal government has formed "a committee of experts", as confirmed by the vice mayor, to "prepare the day after confinement." A committee that includes Juan José Badiola , director of the Center for Emerging Communicable Diseases at the University of Zaragoza and an expert voice during the mad cow crisis . "They are very expert voices to those who are not being heard and that we will be saying", Villacís concluded.

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  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19
  • Confinement
  • Begoña Villacís Sánchez

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