In brief

Royal Decree-Law 21/2020, dated 9 June, was published today in Spain's Official State Gazette (the "BOE"). It establishes prevention, containment and coordination measures to deal with the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 and becomes enforceable tomorrow.

You can read the entire law in Spanish here. To access the measures and their performance, click here.

In general, the measures established by this Royal Decree-Law are not new, but reiterate those already established in the numerous laws that were published during the State of Emergency. The purpose of this Royal Decree Law is to disassociate these measures from the State of Emergency, so that they remain in force when the State of Emergency is lifted.

Therefore, the measures expressly contained in this Royal Decree-Law will continue to be applicable throughout Spain when the State of Emergency ends and until the Spanish government formally declares the health crisis is over. While the State of Emergency is still in place, these measures will also be applicable in those provinces, islands or areas that are in at least Phase III of the De-escalation Plan toward the New Normality.

The measures contained in this Royal Decree-Law can be classified as follows:

  • Prevention and hygiene measures;
  • Transport measures;
  • Measures related to medicines and other health products;
  • Measures related to detection, control and epidemiological surveillance; and
  • Measures to ensure the health system's operability.

The new Royal Decree-Law also regulates the penalty regime applicable to violations of these measures, indicating that the penalty regime of the Public Healthcare Act will be applicable to violations of the prevention and public health measures and the sectorial laws to violations of the transport measures.

Furthermore, we must also highlight the fact that the additional provisions of this Royal Decree-Law regulate the health and operational controls that will be used in airports managed by Aena, with regard to foreign healthcare at ports of general interest.

The new law establishes a maximum 2020 budget of 2,817,500,000 euros to cover the costs and losses incurred in financing transactions carried out by the European Investment Bank Group through the Pan- European Guarantee Fund in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

These additional provisions also extend the deadline for holding general corporate meetings, board of directors meetings, or meetings of delegated committees by electronic means, to 31 December 2020. It also allows corporate boards to pass resolutions in writing and without a meeting, even if such method is not expressly established in the company's articles of association or by-laws.

The Royal Decree-Law also establishes that the suspension of expiration periods for register entries subject to cancellation has now been lifted and, as of 10 June 2020, such periods begin to lapse once again.