Jobs at risk in commercial sector

Balearic vice-president and Minister for Commerce, Pere Sampol, said yesterday that the suspension of ten articles in the region's new commercial law following central government's decision to challenge the law in the Constitutional Tribunal, poses a threat to 75'000 jobs in the Balearics. Sampol, who devised the new law and believes it is the key to protecting the future of the livelihoods of the region's small shopkeepers, fears that by challenging new autonomous laws restricting the construction of more hypermarkets and superstores in the Balearics, thousands of jobs could be lost. Sampol said yesterday “the possible suspension of the law will have a series of negative consequences for the Balearic economy and threaten the future of 20'000 businesses in the commercial sector.” Should the Tribunal in Madrid accept the government's grounds to appeal the Balearic law, then the law will be suspended, pending the final ruling.