Network linked to former PSOE leaders allegedly used contacts with Basque nationalists to push through industrial rescue
A police report of nearly two hundred pages suggests that a network allegedly headed by former socialist officials sought backing from the PNV to force the government to grant a multi-million euro aid package to a company in the Basque Country.
Network linked to former PSOE leaders allegedly used contacts with Basque nationalists to push through industrial rescue
A team of investigators from the Guardia Civil maintains that a structure allegedly led by a former activist from the socialist party and an ex-senior official of a state-owned industrial enterprise established links with leaders of the Basque Nationalist Party. According to an extensive report incorporated into a judicial case, the objective would have been to pressure the Madrid government to unlock a multi-million euro aid package intended for an industrial company based in Álava. The details were first reported by ABC.
The document, which exceeds one hundred and ninety pages, forms part of the case file directed by a judge at Spain's senior criminal court. It describes how three people — a former activist from Spain's main left-wing party, a former president of a state-owned industrial holdings company and a third intermediary — would have formed a working group to ensure that the State injected funds into a tubes company based in Amurrio.
The operation would have generated illicit profits close to two hundred and fifty thousand euros. Part of that amount, slightly less than one hundred and fifteen thousand, would have arrived through a shell company that issued monthly invoices for nearly two years. The remainder would have been paid directly to the ex-senior public official.
Police investigators detail how the intermediary would have made available to the structure both the commercial company used to conceal the payments and his network of contacts within the separatist party. This proximity would have allowed access to leaders with the capacity to influence governmental decision-making. Among the names appearing in the report are a former PNV president and a former organisational manager of the same party, with whom a meeting would have been held in January of this year.
The origin of the network is placed in spring 2021, when the former president of the public entity asked the intermediary about the relationship between the Basque nationalists and the tubes company. A few days later, the aid application was approved by the body in charge of managing business solvency funds. Messages seized show that those involved celebrated the decision as a result of their intervention.
The judicial investigation initially focused on possible irregularities in public contracts within the state entity, but the judge expanded the scope upon detecting signs that the former socialist activist would also have attempted to obstruct judicial proceedings affecting her party and the Government. The section concerning the industrial rescue is now being processed as a separate procedure within that larger case.
The State Secretary for the Economy at that time would have shown reluctance about granting the aid, which would have prompted the network to seek alternative political backing to unblock the operation. The aid finally authorised consisted of one hundred and eight million euros with a repayment period of seven years.
Source: ABC