CNN
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Spain's days are notoriously long. Lunch doesn't start until 2pm. Work often ends after 7pm, and dinner starts at 8:30 at the earliest. To the delight of some tourists hoping to experience a different way of life, many restaurants close well past midnight and staff go home early in the morning.
So when Yolanda Díaz, Spain's second vice president and minister of labor and social economy, denounced the country's late-night culture as “crazy,” she hit a nerve.
“No sane country has restaurants open until 1 a.m.,” she said at a parliamentary caucus meeting this month. “It's insane to keep pretending and extending the time until you don't know what time it is anymore.”
“But we are different,” Madrid Mayor Isabel Ayuso retorted on social media platform X, with the debate falling along party lines. “They want us all to be Puritans and socialists,” she writes, “bored and at home.”
Despite the long days, Spaniards work just 37.8 hours a week, slightly above the European average, according to the European Commission. However, their sleeping hours are shorter than in most Nordic countries: 7.13 hours per night, according to public health maps.
Spaniards don't always stay up that late, says Marta Junque of the Barcelona-based Time Utilization Institute, who was recently consulted by the Spanish government about adjusting working time laws.
“Spain is unique in that it currently has late exit times,” Junke says. “It wasn't always like that. My grandparents worked just like everyone else. They woke up when the sun came out and stopped when the light went out. Now it's 6 or 7 o'clock. It gets dark, but we’re still working.”
“What we are defending is the right to be punctual,” she added.
Eric Andres/United Archive/Getty Images
Siesta began as a traditional break for workers to escape the intense heat of the midday sun, like these men photographed in the 1950s.
According to Junque, this shift in time can be traced back to one man: Francisco Franco, the military dictator who ruled Spain from 1936 to 1975. During World War II, Franco changed Spain's time zone to align with his ally Germany. Everything was brought forward by an hour and has not changed since then.
“It should be on the same schedule as Lisbon and London. Instead, it will be on par with Berlin time in the winter and Istanbul in the summer,” Junke says.
How about a siesta, Spain's famous long afternoon break?
Siesta, derived from the Latin sexta for the sixth hour after dawn, is a traditional break for agricultural workers in Italy as well as Spain, usually taken around midday when the intense heat of the Mediterranean sun begins to reach its peak. .
But siesta became more popular in Spain during the Franco era, when the economic downturn forced people to work multiple jobs, Junque said.
“People wake up at dawn, work six to eight hours, take a two to three hour break to rest, eat, and commute to another job. Then they work a few more hours into the evening.”
In Spanish, siesta literally means nap. However, less than 18% of Spaniards currently sleep regularly during those hours, according to a 2016 poll. More than 50% of respondents said they never take naps.
But the siesta, combined with President Franco's time zone change, set the Spanish economy's circadian clock late into the night.
Many stores in Spain close for a two- to three-hour break in the afternoon, lengthening employees' days and creating what Junquet calls “time poverty.”
Paul Hanna/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Although people in Spain work only slightly longer than the European average, they can still work longer days.
The hardest hit are Spanish women who, in addition to being employed, are responsible for most of the housework and caregiving. According to the Time Use Institute, 30% of Spanish women with family members to care for suffer from a complete lack of personal time.
This may be one reason why Spain's productivity levels lag behind other European countries.
“All indicators show that the longer you stay at work, the less productive you are,” Junke says. “This model in Spain combines long working hours (time spent at work) with a culture of 'presenteeism', where people need to come to the office, and the lack of autonomy to choose their own hours reduces productivity. It means a decline in
For years, Spain has struggled with how to fix its body clock. This is an issue that transcends political party boundaries. In 2016, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain's conservative Popular Party tried unsuccessfully to set the country's clocks back to Greenwich Mean Time.
The current government, led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, advocates shorter working hours and greater flexibility. It also mandated pay increases for workers who work from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
This has had a major impact on Spain's hospitality and tourism industries, especially late-night dining.
On a recent Thursday at 8:30 p.m. in Valencia's popular El Carmen neighborhood, less than a third of Terrazza's tables were occupied. But after two hours, he's lucky to find an empty spot among the tapas tables and bottles of Rioja and Rueda.
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There have been calls for nighttime workers to have their working hours reduced and their salaries increased.
Restaurateur Dani Garcia said diners in Spain don't peak until after 10 p.m. That means restaurant owners will bear the brunt of the costs.
“Sure, you might get German or British tourists expecting dinner at 6pm, but it’s not until 10pm that locals gather at their tables,” he says. .
Rushing through your meal is the height of rudeness and very un-Spanish.
“You can't rush your customers,” Garcia says. “You can't have them watch you take out the garbage bags. But if they're late, you're going to pay more. It's not just about pay, it's about having your staff take a taxi home at 2 a.m. I also paid to have it shipped to.”
In Spain, there is a word, “sobremesa,'' which refers to lingering over a delicious meal. The literal translation is “on the table,” but it describes the golden moment of enjoying coffee or a digestif after a delicious meal with friends and family. It's especially charming on Spain's beautiful and long summer days.
Even though it's past midnight in El Carmen, the terrazza is still packed with people. Although there was less food, more bottles of wine, and lots of social laughter and even some spontaneous dancing.
Politicians may fight over working hours, but Spanish diners are unlikely to change their late-night habits anytime soon.
