The European Commission reproaches Spain that has not promoted a national strategy against corruption. It is of the great pull of ears in the annual report on the situation of the rule of law that the government takes place at a time when it is in low hours, among other things, due to the great scandal that affects the last two secretaries of organization, José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán, the latter in provisional prison. The community government recriminates that no step has been taken to boost that strategy, which is committed to the law of protection for complainants.
“It has not yet been working on the National Anti -Corruption Strategy provided by law for September 2024,” the report collects, which warns: “According to interested parties, despite the inclusion of anti -corruption priorities in sectoral plans and strategies, the absence of a unified strategy runs the risk of fragmentation and insufficient supervision of the measures.”
Asked about the corruption scandals that have recently affected the surroundings of Pedro Sánchez, the commissioner of Justice, Michael McGrath, has avoided ruling on “individual cases.” “The general regime of fighting corruption in the Member State is examined as a fundamental pillar of the rule of law. And in relation to Spain, the Government is obliged by law to adopt a global strategy for prevention and fight against corruption, but it has not yet been working on it. The law of criminal prosecution is not being reviewed, and more resources have been provided to reduce the duration of investigations and prosecution Level, while the level of application of the law in terms of foreign bribery remains low, ”he summarized.
Nor does the report make express references to cases, but again, the “high risk of corruption” is collected in sectors such as “public procurement, financing of political parties, infrastructure projects and public service contracts.” And is based on the responses of the Eurobarometer in which 40% of companies think that corruption has prevented them from gaining tenders in recent years (the EU average is 25%).
And, in relation to the financing of political parties, Spain takes another pull of ears for not having “taken measures to reform electoral legislation in accordance with the recommendations of the Court of Accounts.” On the contrary, he sees progress in the attempt to limit the investigations of corruption macro-causas, although he recommends that the definitive impulse be given to the processing of the reform of the Criminal Procedure Law to complete that process.
It also points out the advances so that the mandate of the State Attorney General is detached from the duration of the legislature to adapt to the “European standards.” The claim is that this figure of the Executive be senses as much as possible, although Brussels does not question the government that names the head of the Public Ministry. In his recommendations, he points to the need to “continue efforts to strengthen the statute of the Attorney General, in particular in regard to the separation of his mandate from the government related to the Government, taking into account the European norms on independence and autonomy of the Prosecutor's Office”.
The report mentions the processing of Álvaro García Ortiz for the alleged filtration of confidential information on the fraud of the couple of the president of the Community of Madrid. Regarding that case, it also includes the imputation of four journalists and the corresponding complaint of the informants associations.
The report goes on tiptoe again through the amnesty to the procés, despite the attempts of the PP that the European Commission questioned that law in its analysis of the rule of law. What Brussels does is take note that the Constitutional Court has endorsed the norm and recalls that its evaluation will be part of the procedures before the EU Court of Justice. This analysis was critical of Amnesty's law, although Brussels does not see the EU finances, which is one of the main reasons why the conflict rose to the Luxembourg Court.
It also disappears practically the one that for years was the great reproach of Brussels regarding the situation of the rule of law in Spain: the Judiciary. After the agreement reached between PSOE and PP in June 2024, the community government sees advances in the appointments that have been unlocked.
“There are currently protest actions of judges and prosecutors that reflect the tensions around the proposed reforms on the Judiciary. Some judicial and fiscal associations convened a three -day strike manifesting against the bill on the judicial and fiscal career, asking for its withdrawal of the legislative process,” he says about the justice efficiency law promoted by Félix Bolaños and that he has the conservative sector of the judicial career in the judicial career. In fact, on Tuesday they have traveled to Strasbourg, from the hand of the PP, to complain about it. The report states that the right to strike from judges and prosecutors is not regulated.
The report, which in most cases is limited to enumerating measures and barely makes a handful of recommendations on the need to strengthen systems against corruption, lobbies regulation and the modification of the Secrets Law to give more transparency, has a radically opposite reading for the Government and the PP.
Sources from the Ministry of Justice ensure that the report supports its reforms and “throws by land the bulos that have been insistently repeated to try to stop the greatest transformation of justice in decades.” The general secretary of the European PP, Dolors Montserrat, believes that it is “devastating” because it includes “persecution of judges and journalists”, “null judicial independence”, “doubts of the legality of the amnesty”, and “prosecuted attorney”, despite the fact that the European Commission does not enter those valuations. “Sánchez is a danger,” he concludes in a post in X.
