A document from the Generalitat of Catalonia, presided over by Salvador Illa, definitively saves the pro-independence leaders of the procés from returning five million embezzled and forces the Tribunal de Cuentas to grant them amnesty for their embezzlement.
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The document, accessed by EL MUNDO, was sent by the General Advocacy of the Generalitat of Catalonia so that the Tribunal de Cuentas finally closes the case opened against Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras, and about thirty pro-independence activists for having embezzled up to five million in the procés, including the illegal 2017 referendum.
The counselor of the Tribunal de Cuentas handling the case, Elena Hernáez, opened a last avenue at the end of July to avoid amnesty after the support of the Court of Justice of the European Union for the government law. The avenue consisted of giving the parties a deadline to clarify whether the embezzled money affected European funds, which is the only way not to apply amnesty. Sociedad Civil Catalana has submitted a document – also accessed by this newspaper – stating that pro-independence activists cannot be granted amnesty without verifying if some or all of the embezzled amounts worth 4.97 million included European resources and emphasizes that the intricate accounting of the Generalitat of Catalonia, especially in expenses incurred in the external promotion of the procés, currently prevents closing the case without opening new proceedings.
However, the Generalitat of Catalonia has sent a document in the opposite direction that is key to closing the case, since it is the only Administration officially harmed by the pro-independence embezzlement and the Illa government definitively renounces recovering the money. “Precisely because of its status as the allegedly harmed public sector, the Generalitat of Catalonia expressly states its agreement with the application of Organic Law 1/2024, of June 1 [the Amnesty Law], to the present procedure and with the consequent extinction of accounting responsibility that could arise from the facts subject to it.”
The lawyer of Sociedad Civil Catalana, Juan Chapapría, has requested the Tribunal de Cuentas, on the contrary, that the Generalitat of Catalonia provide “the accounting and budgetary documentation indicated regarding each of the items and allow determining their source of financing.” He motivates this request because, “in this party’s opinion, these limitations prevent concluding, from the mere absence in an entry, bank statement, or specific document of an explicit reference to European funds, that the financing was exclusively regional.”
The Government did not dare at the time to apply amnesty also to the embezzlement of European funds and limits it to the Spanish treasury to avoid problems with Brussels, but the civil association that has appeared as an accusation in the Tribunal de Cuentas – the Prosecutor’s Office has already withdrawn and before that the State Advocacy – still sees room to prove the link between regional or national public money and the European funds that the State and the Generalitat themselves recurrently receive.
However, technicians from the Tribunal de Cuentas consulted see it very difficult to keep the case alive, despite the fact that the oversight body was the first to raise a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the EU seeking help. The ruling of the latter supporting amnesty if it does not affect European money and Illa’s renunciation to assist in that line close the last possible window.
The general lawyer of the Generalitat of Catalonia expressly requests the Tribunal de Cuentas – see attached document – that “the accounting responsibility that could arise from the facts subject to judgment be declared extinguished.”
Also that “all defendants be acquitted of accounting responsibility” and therefore, they do not have to return the money. And finally, that “the immediate lifting of all precautionary measures adopted be ordered.” This is particularly important to the Generalitat because, as it recalls in its document, Salvador Illa’s predecessor, Pere Aragonès, ordered to guarantee with more than nine million euros the pro-independence leaders accused of embezzling money from the Generalitat, so that preventive seizure of assets from Carles Puigdemont or Oriol Junqueras would not be necessary.
It recalls that “the alleged accounting responsibility was provisionally guaranteed by orders dated February 26, 2020, for an amount of 4,146,274.97 euros (in relation to the expenses of the October 1, 2017 referendum), and May 4, 2022, for an amount of 5,422,411.10 euros (in relation to the expenses of the so-called external action during the years 2011 to 2017, in this last case through guarantees granted by the Institut Català de Finances).”
The defense of the pro-independence leaders also requests the Tribunal de Cuentas to definitively close the case.
The responsible counselor still has time these weeks to close or keep the case alive, although the president of the Tribunal de Cuentas, Enriqueta Chicano, has informally conveyed these days to knowledgeable sources that the outlook is to end this long chapter that aimed for those public officials to return the embezzled money. The Tribunal de Cuentas did achieve this with the illegal 2014 consultation, but not with the 2017 one.