Editorials
But when do the Spaniards sleep?
By h.b.
Nov 8, 2006 - 7:36 AM

EDITORIAL COMMENT -

Many foreigners visiting Spain wonder when Spaniards sleep. With the working day stretching into the evening, and the last meal of the day often not starting until ten o’clock when on earth do Spaniards hit the sack?

Even allowing for the luxury of an afternoon siesta for those who live close enough to home, the sums are hard to work out.

Yesterday Spain and another four European countries, France, Italy Greece and Cyprus, blocked a measure to increase the European limit to the working week which currently stands at 48 hours. It’s stalemate for an argument which has been going on in the EU for the past three years. Different countries have different cultural attitudes to work.

A favourite expression among Spaniards is ‘I work to live, not live to work’, and of course longer working hours would not go with that, and what’s more the Minister for Employment, Jesús Caldera, is on record as saying that a 48 hour working week limit was enough and any legislation which allowed more than that, as in the U.K. opt out, should disappear. In fact last year the British wanted to increase the limit to 65 hours, believe it or not, but that was, not unsurprisingly, rejected.

Finding the balance between work and home life is a difficult one in such competitive times, and finding the time to sleep soundly to be fresh and ready for a full day’s work the next morning also has its complications when one lives in Spain.

But surely a 48 hour working week is enough, with or without a siesta.