The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office suspects that certain legislative reforms promoted by the Ministry of Finance during the time of Cristóbal Montoro – and which are being investigated – could have caused damage to the public coffers in favor of a series of private companies
According to sources of the investigation that is being followed from the court of i nstruction number 2 of Tarragona, it is being analyzed how far the hole could reach the State when it stopped collecting money as a result of having benefited from certain tax companies advised by Equipo Económico, the office founded by the head of the Treasury during the governments of Mariano Rajoy and which he left before being appointed minister.
The thesis of the researchers is that there would be an agreement between the tax office Equipo Económico (EE) and the Treasury itself to favor companies through modifications, reforms and new rules. From the investigation it appears that the companies went directly to Equipo Económico with juicy payments to send draft reports or reform projects to the Treasury so that they would be approved by the Executive.
Different government sources at the time maintain in private that reports did indeed arrive at the Delegated Commission of the Government for Economic Affairs that came directly from the office in question. For this reason, it is being investigated whether a crime of influence peddling could have been committed between members of the fiscal advisory board and the top of the Treasury. These same sources emphasize that Montoro’s former connection with the office was well known. On the one hand, his brother Ricardo continued in the office for a few more years after the departure of the former leader of the PP. In addition, the pre-existing relationship between the minister and the office’s executive president, Ricardo Martínez Rico, was known.
The first reform analyzed by the researchers is the one that modified the special tax on electricity, which benefited several gas companies included in the Association of Manufacturers of Industrial and Medicinal Gases (Afgim) and represented by Equipo Económico, formerly called Montoro y associates
One of the legs of the investigation initiated by the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, together with the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Civil Guard, is to determine whether those reforms promoted by the Ministry of Finance and which were approved generated economic damage.
From what they are analyzing, according to various sources, it is clear that the hole – the one that stopped entering after relaxing the entry of certain taxes – could have been a millionaire. The key to the issue, on the one hand, is that the Treasury would have carried out reforms to the letter and another that these reforms would not have as their objective a general interest with a social benefit, but their sole purpose would be the benefit of specific companies, in this case those covered by Afgim.
Consulted several sources in the sector, they emphasize that precisely here is the difference between the work of a lobby and that of a company with the intention of using influences and acting through shortcuts.
The reform of the electricity tax is one of those that are in the crosshairs of the investigators of a case that has been open since 2018 and that continues under secret summary.
