The return of the 80 million loan granted in 2010 granted the Zapatero government to the Community of Madrid for R&D (Research, Development and Innovation) has already cost the regional administration a minimum of 51.89 million euros that Madrid Network, the Opaca Public-Private Association founded by Esperanza Aguirre and that injected 1.8 million to Economic Equipment SL, the company of the former minister Cristóbal Montoro.
Initially chaired by the Minister of Finance, Aguirre immediately transferred to Madrid Network those 80 million from the central government through an agreement that remains in force. But that the entity, whose accounts maintains the community hidden from lime and song, has not paid since 2018 the annual fees for the return of the loan has not had much effect: in December 2023 the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso subsidized it with 106,974 euros for R & D+i from the EU (FEDER FUNDS) and then raise its contribution to 229,877 euros granted in the same month of the same month of 2024 and with identical origin and purpose. In the first call there were only 11 beneficiaries; In the second, 16. To the question of why it is subsidized with more than 300,000 euros in two years to an entity that owes the Madrid treasury not less than 51.89 million, authorized sources of the Ministry of Finance responded thus: “The regional executive cannot deny subsidies granted in competitive concurrence, of making it incurred in prevarication.”
It is the Chamber of Accounts of Madrid that in its latest report published on the community numbers reveals that at the end of 2023 the provision of funds to face the defaults of Madrid Network added “51,893 thousand euros” since 2018. In other words: since the “risk of default” was persistent – the quoted belongs to the report of the supervisory agency over 2020 -, the community should include in its budgets of each year An expense equivalent to the annual fee that it had to transfer to the ministry.
The report reads what follows: “The ACM short -term credits account (Madrid Community Administration) collects, among others, 55,472 thousand euros that correspond to a loan of the agreement with AIG (Association of General Interest) Madrid Network, of which 51,893 thousand euros are unpaid quotas since the year 2018, which have been claimed by the community of Madrid and are found in judicial means. The persistence of this situation and following the recommendations of this Chamber contained in previous reports, the Community of Madrid has been providing a provision for the total unpaid amounts ”. The consultation of different sentences on the non -payment of Madrid Network indicates that it is the association and not the community that went to the courts to justify its refusal to satisfy the quota set with respect to the return of the loan.
On what happened with these litigation there is still no definitive information. However, already the question of whether Madrid Network has satisfied since the date of approval of the aforementioned report of the Chamber of Accounts (December 30, 2024) some amount that minor the debt accounted for by the supervisory body, that is, 51.89 million euros, the response of the Ministry of Finance was brief but taxation: “No”.
Qualified as a non -profit association, Madrid Network has not attended the repeated calls of this medium to know the reason for non -payment and request the annual support of expenditure. In the memoirs, not only the calculation of the loans made by Madrid Network must appear, but the identification of the receiving companies.
Today, and although the Ayuso Government has eluded whether there was also default in 2024 but it has corroborated that it was repeated in 2025, the figure of 51.89 million falls short: the annual return fee of that loan at low interest (1,232%) amounted to 0.091 million each year. According to the Community of Madrid, it is now 8,112,010.73. In summary, if at 51.89 million accounted for by the Chamber of Accounts in 2023, 8.1 million are added for 2024 and the same for 2025, the amount of what the Community of Madrid has spent spent to cover with public money the breaches of Madrid Network Raza and the 70 million.
The Ministry of Science has not agreed to break down the amount (main more interest) of the annual fees skipped by the Government of Madrid. “As of today – it was its only response – the Community of Madrid is paying in time the fees of the librans received. Of the 80 million euros of the loan granted, the amount pending amortization is 5,367 million euros.” Of the 80 million, Madrid Network returned more than four as remaining. That is, money that had not come to be facilitated through credits.
The history of Madrid Network, where Isabel Díaz Ayuso worked With a net monthly salary of 4.219 euros Until in July 2011 he obtained a seat in the Madrid Assembly, resembles the Guadiana channel. Since its foundation in 2007, with statutes that allocated the presidency to whom the position of Minister of Finance of Madrid had held, has always remained opaque but without the enormous palette of public money with which Aguirre strengthened it occupied a space in the Madrid political scene. However, in the last decade there were moments when episodes under suspicion, such as the concession of loans – improper – to a linked company to the former health councilor Manuel Lamelathe politician who chased the medical team of the Severo Ochoa hospital under the false accusation that they practiced illegal sedations, and two of Ildefonso de Miguel, who was the right hand of the former president –still pending judgment– Ignacio González.
Its first president was Antonio Beteta, Madrid's Minister of Finance from its Constitution, in 2007, until in December 2011, the Cristóbal Montoro ministerial team was incorporated as Secretary of State after winning Mariano Rajoy the elections of that year. In June 2016, Madrid Network modified its statutes, which eliminated the sine qua non condition until then: that the presidency recipared about the Minister of Finance or who designated.
During Beteta's mandate in Madrid's head of the Treasury, the company founded by Cristóbal Montoro – the aforementioned economic team – swelled its accounts with 314,360 euros thanks to contracts awarded by the community for services until today unknown. This is stated in the same Civil Guard report that uncovered how Economic team had charged Madrid Network 1.8 million euros between 2008 and 2011.
Although after the outbreak of the Montoro case, the version circulated according to which the community was separated years ago in Madrid Network, the General Budget project of the Community of Madrid includes among the activities of the Research Program of the Ministry of Education the “Participation in the Madrid Network Association and its activities as a partner of the same”.
