Every year, it is customary in Spain for companies to organize Christmas dinners throughout the month of December. A very deep-rooted tradition: the company or the employees book a restaurant, we eat, we drink, the most solid follow on cocktails or at a nightclub. This year, with the wave of contamination with the Covid-19 Omicron variant, many of these meals are canceled or arranged.
First, there are a lot of companies that are canceling outright, especially large companies that were planning to bring together large groups of employees. This is the case of BBVA, Santander, Caixa banks, electricity groups, construction companies who have decided to eliminate even the sharing of a glass of champagne. According to the hotel and catering federation, 40 to 50% of these festivities have been canceled this year. As for those who maintain their reservations, they sometimes change the configuration: fewer guests, more tables and space, cocktail instead of dinner, or go outside, on a heated terrace for example.
Apart from these business cases, other organizations are concerned by this question. This is the case of the Popular Party, the great formation of the Spanish right, which is arguing over whether we should drink together at Christmas. For a few months there has been an internal war between the president of the party, Pablo Casado, and the president of the region of Madrid, the media and controversy Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The latter, very popular among militants, has an unfortunate tendency to steal the limelight from the boss.
The two argue as a rule by lieutenants interposed, often on internal questions, dates of congresses, or the regulation of the primaries. This time, it is the Christmas dinner which invites itself in the debates. Diaz Ayuso, who has always defended a policy of openness in the face of Covid-19, wanted to maintain this event, while Pablo Casado repeats that there is no question of it. The spirit of Christmas, the famous “truce of the confectioners”, did not allow to calm the tensions, after the decision of Pablo Casado to unilaterally cancel the event.
“I can’t organize this dinner, because I was forbidden to do so, complained Isabel Díaz Ayuso, eI respect the hierarchy. But let it be clear that this goes against the health policy that we have defended in the Madrid region.“To which the national leadership replied that it was doing nothing other than applying the same rules of caution as almost all the companies in the country. To drive the point home, the president of the PP himself replied without taking tweezers.
“I am not concerned with these subjects. What I can say is that yesterday 100 people died from Covid. It is a dramatic reality that it is worth recalling from time to time.”
Pablo Casado, president of the Popular Party
One could almost believe in an argument, on Christmas Eve, between Pablo Casado and the president of the region of Madrid.