The Constitutional Court has begun processing a constitutional challenge to the state control of liberalised commercial opening hours brought by the government of Andalucia.
The challenge relates to Articles 26 and 27 covering small businesses. The national limit for the opening times of commercial premises is 90 hours per week during work days and the government of Andalucia believes that this favours large enterprises to the detriment of small retail businesses.
In Andalucia, the opening hours are limited to 72 hours per week on work days, set by the Law of Interior Commerce.
In addition, the national legislation allows merchants to freely determine the periods and duration of sales, previously restricted to one in the summer and one in the winter. The government of Andalucia believes that this is also detrimental to the small retail businesses.