By Prensa Latina,
Madrid : Voices began to be heard in Spain on Tuesday protesting the decision taken by the European Union to increase labor hours to 65 a week in the member states.
One of the first to protest was governing PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party) which summoned people to create a democratic front in opposition to the decision, adopted on Monday by Labour Ministries of the EU that must later be ratified by European Parliament.
PSOE Secretary of International Relations Elena Valenciano described the decision as retrograde and as an affront to the rights of the workers.
She assured that her party will not allow going back in the conquests of the workers and considered that what has been agreed by the EU breaks the long tradition of the European labour rights and fails to achieve principles established in the new Lisbon Treaty and in its Bill of fundamental rights.
The Spanish government was the one of more opposition presented to the approval of the week labour hours extension, definitively adopted with abstentions from Spain, Greece, Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary, Portugal and Malta.
On the other hand, the President of the National Federation of Independent Workers of Spain Lorenzo Amor criticized the decision, describing it as a serious backward step socially speaking.
Likewise, Izquierda Unida (United Left) General Coordinator Gaspar Llamazares considered that the extension of the labour week constitutes a scandal that denies the political and social history of the EU.
According to Llamazares, the decision shows that Europe is under a neo-liberal and conservative policy that does not take citizen interests into account.