Doubtful extension

The Spanish government's decision to extend the state of alert over Spain's air space until January 15 solves a problem in the short term (the possibility of flying during the holiday season), but deepens the anxiety naturally produced by an extraordinary and legally questionable measure. Only the favorable vote of the Congress of Deputies, a step planned for Thursday, will clothe the decision with greater legitimacy.

There are powerful reasons for extending this emergency measure until December 31. But there is room for doubt about the need to extend it any further, especially in view of the prime minister's affirmation that he would not prolong the militarization of Spanish air space one day more than necessary.

The challenge thrown down by the controllers on December 3 had its origin in the different calculation they had made of yearly working hours, against the interpretation of AENA (the airport administration agency). Thus until year's end the immediate cause of the conflict remains standing, which partly neutralizes the measure's objectionably preventive character. To extend such a situation into January will give travelers peace of mind, but deepens the uncertainty about its legal framework. If the state of alarm is to be prolonged until January 15, why not until February, or Easter?

The extension again shows up the inability, on the part of our public authorities, to handle the air traffic control problem. Two splinter parties in Congress, the regional nationalist parties PNV and CiU, both favorable to the measure, nevertheless asked the government to show that this is the only alternative to guarantee normal air traffic. Twelve days after the air traffic controllers' rebellion, nobody has brought forward any other option.

The disastrous conduct of successive Popular Party (PP) governments, which made extraordinary concessions to the air traffic controllers in terms of working conditions and self-management, was followed by the inaction of the first Zapatero governments; and, at last this year, by a political decision to overhaul the sector. In view of events, though, this decision has been insufficient to deactivate in a few months the union's capacity to blackmail the Spanish state, in the interests of a group of less than 2,000 employees.

It is obvious that the air traffic controllers conflict is a bomb that has blown up in the government's hands, but behind the measures adopted - so extraordinary as to involve the army and a state of alert - there is a certain manifestation of impotence, also on the part of the government, if this is the only way of preventively short-circuiting the controllers' crooked computation of working hours and preventing their repeated and entirely unjustified absences.

The state of alert should not be prolonged even one day more than is absolutely indispensable. There is an urgent need for the government to accelerate the reforms that have been undertaken in the sector, and for the PP to lend a hand, or at least not to sabotage any solution to this conflict, which the PP once nourished, and for which it is also responsible.