Itziar González: "In ten years, less than 1% of the agreed anti-corruption measures have been approved."

Itziar González is an architect and social urban planner by profession with a background in politics: in 2007, she ran as an independent candidate on the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) ticket for the Ciutat Vella councillorship. She is also a member of the measures that parties and organizations agreed to promote in 2015, a social pact against corruption in Catalonia.

— In 2015, around fifty political entities and parties joined forces to form a social pact against corruption in Catalonia. Since then, we've held three summits, where we've put concrete measures on the table, such as a Catalan law to protect whistleblowers, a new Catalan electoral law that addresses party financing, improving transparency, public ethics, and, ultimately, establishing a culture of integrity. That was ten years ago, and of all our attempts, we've only achieved three paltry, non-fundamental goals. The goal achievement rate is below 1%. It's a failure.

Why have they failed?

— At the last summit, we issued two warnings. First, we addressed the politicians and said, "I don't believe you don't want these measures. We should understand what's happening to you and why it's failing." The deputies' response was self-critical, and they want to continue with the anti-corruption pact. The next thing we did was address the oversight bodies, the Anti-Fraud Office and the Audit Office, to tell them that the entire whistleblower system doesn't work, even though there is now a Spanish law that recognizes them. Keep in mind that right now, there are corruption whistleblowers [a position recognized by the European Union] coming to us. They tell us they're being harassed and they're not being helped. These people's suffering is such that we're trying to take some action.

Are they recognized in Catalonia as whistleblowers of corruption, according to the law in force in the State?

— We have a dozen Catalan whistleblowers who have written to us at the Observatory telling us they are not being helped. Each of them is under extreme stress. I know exactly what they're going through because I've been through it, but they are experiencing a double threat: they appear to be protected by the Anti-Fraud Office, but they are not being given effective legal protection or sanctions for the reprisals they receive.

Why do you think there is this lack of effectiveness?

— Are the parties that are supposed to promote transparency transparent? What possibility do we have of monitoring the public resources they receive? If we're providing money for them to perform their social function, why can't I access what's done with these public resources? And the other issue is oversight bodies: if we don't give them a citizen element to monitor them, it could end up being controlled by politicians, since they are the ones who elect them. We're not moving toward democratic and cooperative structures, but toward hierarchy and domination.

Thus, the current oversight bodies are not sufficient.

— When a structure collapses, it means that you see it as being upright, but it can no longer bear the load. The party system and many of our institutions find themselves in a similar situation. They appear to be functioning, but are unable to meet citizens' demands. Now society demands ethics and integrity. If the public system finances the parties, the public system should be able to act as a firefighter without the need for the Prosecutor's Office or the UCO (Central University of Catalonia). The problem is that these oversight institutions conduct audits in the format they control, not through other channels, and it seems, hypothetically, that the parties have an opaque and complex engineering that operates through other channels. Therefore, an interesting measure would be for all whistleblowers and the concerned citizens to be able to investigate, observe, and so on.

This can only be achieved through active transparency on the part of political parties and institutions...

That's why we at the Citizen Observatory are asking for this. Why aren't whistleblowers protected? Because we're the ones who truly make a difference, and we can become true oversight offices. It would be one of the most effective mechanisms. That's why no one is really interested in protection. The alerts these whistleblowers can provide provide much more information than what official systems can provide. They don't want citizens to become an army of whistleblowers.