The central government and the Community of Madrid maintain an open confrontation over two social subsidies that the Executive granted to the regional administration and that it has not used, and has seized, with the argument that the Ministry of the Interior owes it money. These subsidies represent 5.3 million from the Ministry of Social Rights to adapt homes for dependent people and another 7.7 million from Equality, corresponding to two years of a plan to promote co-responsibility in care.
The Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has decided to seize the two subsidies, arguing that the central government, specifically the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions – dependent on the Interior – owes it more than 33 million euros for the medical care of inmates admitted to prisons in the Community of Madrid. Furthermore, he denounces that the central Executive has responded to the embargo by blocking new aid.
The Supreme Court resolved in 2019 that medical care must be paid for by the central Administration, which exercises jurisdiction over Prisons. On the other hand, the Law on Cohesion and Quality of the National Health System, which came into force in 2003, established that health services for prisoners had to be transferred within a period of 18 months to the autonomous communities, and that they would thus be integrated into their health system. To date, only Catalonia – which had already assumed responsibility for Prisons –, Euskadi and Navarra comply with the transfer established by Law. Madrid is one of the communities that continues to fail to comply, twenty-two years later, with the assumption of health care for prisoners.
The conflict between the Community of Madrid and the department headed by Pablo Bustinduy over the 5.3 million subsidy for dependents has already reached court. The State Attorney's Office, representing the Ministry of Social Rights, has resorted to the contentious-administrative route and has requested the suspension of the embargo. In the case of aid from the Ministry of Equality, the deadline for an administrative solution is still valid.
Aid for the adaptation of homes in Madrid for people with disabilities is part of the Transformation, Recovery and Resilience Plan and is financed with the Next Generation funds, released by the European Union to overcome the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Ministry's subsidy to the Community of Madrid amounted to 5,389,475.42 euros and was approved on December 10, 2021. The text included: “New territorial projects to ensure universal accessibility to housing for older people, people with disabilities and/or in a situation of dependency.”
Almost two years later, on November 22, 2023, the Ministry asked the Community of Madrid to justify compliance with the subsidy and, if not, and as stipulated, begin the refund procedure. On January 24, 2024, Social Rights received a response from the Community: it had not used the funds and announced that it would return the amount of the subsidy.
The Secretary of State for Social Rights did the math and came up with 5,822,161.40 euros to be reimbursed, the result of the total amount of the subsidy plus 432,885.98 in late payment interest.
Months passed and in the summer of 2024 everything took a turn. On August 5 of that year, the Community of Madrid notified Social Rights that it was proceeding to seize 6,524,596.91 euros. It explained that the central government has a debt with the regional administration for the health services provided to inmates in the Estremera prison (Madrid VII) between 2015 and 2019.
In reality there are two Supreme Court resolutions in the same sense because the conflict was reproduced in Andalusia. There, unlike what happened in Madrid, the Superior Court of Justice of the autonomous community ruled in favor of the central Administration. The matter was so convoluted that there was a prior conflict between the parties about which judicial avenue should resolve it, whether contentious-administrative or social.
The 2019 ruling handed down by the Supreme Court in favor of Madrid has the dissenting vote of one of the six judges, Nicolás Maurandi. This magistrate ruled in favor of the autonomous communities being the ones to bear the medical expenses of the prisoners, as long as they were affiliated or were beneficiaries of the General Social Security Regime.
The Ministry of Bustinduy reacted to the conflict with the Community with an economic-administrative claim in which it warned that, if it continued with the embargo, the Community would be causing “damages that would be impossible or difficult to repair” because the subsidy comes from an item in the General State Budgets linked to a specific event, in this case the application of aid.
The Superior Board of Finance, the economic-administrative body of the Community of Madrid, rejected the suspension of the embargo. The resolution did not go into the substance of the matter and was limited to stating that “there is no act that can be subject to suspension once the act that was intended to be avoided has already been consummated,” in reference to the embargo.
Given this decision, Social Rights contacted the State Attorney's Office to file a contentious-administrative appeal against the resolution of the Community's Higher Treasury Board. Social Rights alleges this circumstance, the fact that the dispute is in court, to not rule on the matter. It is the same argument that the Ministry of the Interior uses to refrain from commenting on the debt with the Community of Madrid and its decision to seize Social Rights and Equality subsidies.
The Community denounces “retaliations” by Sánchez
For the regional government, the decision of its Treasury Board translates into an endorsement by the “courts” of the execution of the embargo. Consulted by elDiario.es, a spokesperson for the Ayuso Executive denounces that the two seizures of subsidies by the central Executive have earned him “retaliation from the Sánchez Government”, which now “blocks the payment of some aid” to the Community of Madrid.
It does so, he adds, preventing the General State Intervention from “erasing” the two embargoed subsidies as regional debt. This would appear in the IGAE certificates denying the processing of aid and subsidies. The Community Treasury Department has already demanded in writing that the Intervention cease its position.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Equality filed an optional appeal on September 27, 2024 against the seizure of the 7.7 million of the Co-Responsibility Plan that have been seized, but did not receive a response from the Community, according to sources from the Ana Redondo department. He then appealed to the Superior Board of Finance, but it rejected the enforcement order. Consulted by elDiario.es, the Ministry of Equality assures that, if its position is not modified within the established period, it will also resort to legal means through the State Attorney's Office.