Open and, above all, public controversy between courts and prosecutors is not uncommon in Spain. When two courts or two prosecutors’ offices want the same investigation, they allow a higher authority to investigate the matter and make a decision. Statements, public statements, and allegations are usually protected, at best when the microphones are turned off. The clash between the Spanish prosecutor’s office and the European prosecutor’s office is an almost unprecedented disagreement in form and substance between the investigators: this is the first public confrontation between the two authorities, which turns out to be in the hands of the court. Luxembourg Court of Justice (CJEU).
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, as this newspaper explained a few days ago, was set up in July last year with the aim of prosecuting crimes that endanger public funds. The controversy with the Spanish prosecutor has had dozens of stages since the end of February and is one of the few that a public body has published on its website. One of them, which has survived over time, remains with the Slovenian executive and its refusal to appoint delegated prosecutors. Another was Poland’s refusal to cooperate with the European Prosecutor’s Office.
The rest of the communications are congratulations on convictions achieved, chronicles of cooperation with police in other countries, and successful operations with the withdrawal of several million euros. But a press release posted on his website on March 28 broke the trend: several paragraphs in English and Spanish in which the European Prosecutor’s Office defended its interest in investigating the contract for which Isabel Diaz Ayuso’s brother charged a fee and the point he offered. Friendly solution: leave the decision in the hands of the CJEU. But by that time the two prosecutors had been exchanging communications for almost a month in a fight to keep the case.
The first attack took place on February 22 this year, when the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office issued an ordinance terminating the investigation into the case. A document signed by the head of the specialized department, Alejandro Luzon, in which the public ministry states that at this time he is not going to address the investigation to the president of the Madrid community and that it is not mentioned. Embezzlement of state money at any time. One week later, on March 1, comes the first message from the European Prosecutor’s Office: a decree asking the anti-corruption organization to make a copy of its investigation to “assess the exercise of the certiorari entitlement”.
The discrepancies were already apparent at the time: European prosecutors wanted to go further than Spanish and investigate possible crimes of fraud and embezzlement of EU budgets. Reason: The purchase of the masks, in which the President’s brother was involved, could have been funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). On March 9, a new request came from the European Prosecutor’s Office, the third round in which Tony was raised: “The Spanish Prosecutor’s Office has no legal authority to examine the competence of this European Prosecutor’s Office. But must attend to the immediate transmission of information, to repeat compliance with the request ”within 24 hours.
A day later, Alejandro Luzon returned the ball to his European counterparts to explain that the process, dubbed 3/2022, had nothing to do with European funds: “It refers to behavior that is directly and exclusively related to national interests in orbit. “Without a sufficient evidence base on the functioning of the National Public Administration without fraud.” Six days later, on March 16, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office resumed its proceedings and added to the list the crime of bribery in order to insist: “This purchase would be fully funded with European funds.”
The last communication of the Spanish anti-corruption prosecution, the sixth round of this fight, took place on March 21, when public opinion still knew nothing about this controversy. Instead of sending the case to Luxembourg as requested by his European counterparts, he referred the case to the Attorney General, Dolores Delgado. Four days later, the situation finally goes beyond the media.
The heroes of this story have names, surnames and a very extensive career in the fight against corruption in Spain. The Spanish representative to the European Prosecutor’s Office is Concepcion Sabadell, a member of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office before the jump in Luxembourg. A prosecutor who stood out in the national court during the trial of Gurtel’s conspiracy and who worked a year ago under Alejandro Luzon. The anti-corruption leader who leads the European opposition is doing the job.
The seventh and eighth attacks took place on the same Monday, March 28, when Dolores Delgado summoned the Council of Prosecutors for a decision. The same morning, the European Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement which, as it acknowledged in its first paragraph, was something special: , That the IUSU contract case had public consequences and that, in any case, the decision could be handed over to the CJEU.
The answer came the same afternoon. The Chamber of Prosecutors of the Chamber decided to support Luzon and offered an unexplored solution: the Spanish prosecution would investigate one side and the European, if it wished, the other side. Two days later came a reply from the European Prosecutor’s Office, this time in a harsher tone and signed by Europe’s Chief Prosecutor, Laura Caves: a letter in which they even accused Attorney General Dolores Delgado of appealing. The supremacy of community law by its decision. He also said that the European Prosecutor’s Office was “continuing the investigation”.
Meanwhile, from the People’s Party and the entourage of the President of Madrid, this struggle for competence has been transferred as a maneuver by the various people appointed to their positions by the government. The speaker of the PP parliament did this at the Madrid assembly on Twitter, pointing to “Lola Delgado” and “her friend Concha Sabadell”. In the short life of this body, the conflict has reached unprecedented heights.
The tenth attack took place this Friday when European prosecutors took another step. The European Prosecutor General, Laura Covesi, sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders. “European prosecutors believe that this decision is not in line with EU law,” Delgado said in a statement. In Brussels, they understand that “ultimately, the EU court will decide, and there should be a mechanism to allow pre-trial questions to reach the court.” Reports Andres Gil.
The result is that the Spanish prosecutor’s office continues to investigate the case: if the contract amounts to more than one and a half million euros, in the worst case of the pandemic, it is handed over to Isabel Diaz Ayuso’s friend and his brother as a commission agent. Had any irregularities. By this time, the president of Madrid had already admitted that his brother had collected 283,000 euros from a firm whose government had manually selected the mask contract and that it belonged to a family friend who had no connection to the healthcare sector. This issue has already cost Pablo Casado’s political career, and now a possible European decision is emerging that calls into question the decision of Dolores Delgado and the Council of Prosecutors to monopolize most of the proceedings and offer double guidance between Madrid and Luxembourg.
Source: El Diario
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