Daniel de Alfonso, former director of the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia (OAC), will have to return €82,341 for improper payments he received while heading the agency. This was determined by the Court of Auditors, which partially upheld the request made by both the OAC's lawyer and the Public Prosecutor's Office following a report from the Catalan Audit Office that alerted authorities to these irregularities. The oversight body found De Alfonso liable for misappropriating bonuses to which he was not entitled, through supplements added to his salary. The former director, who is a judge, had improperly awarded himself seniority bonuses based on his service in various judicial positions prior to his arrival at the Anti-Fraud Office. Under the regulations in force at the time, he could not do so: according to the statutes governing the internal workings and administration of Parliament, applicable to this office, employees could only have their seniority increments for service within that office itself counted, and not in any other public administration. De Alfonso is a judge and, therefore, the Court of Auditors considers it "unquestionable" that, with his legal training, he should have seen that he was not applying the regulations correctly.

The Prosecutor's Office has asked the Court of Auditors to open an investigation into the scandal of the extinct General Directorate of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA). The objective, as has been advanced The National and sources from the Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed to ARA, is to clarify whether the agency dependent on the Department of Social Rights incurred "possible accounting liability" for irregularities in the payment of economic and housing benefits to young people who were formerly in care. All this, after the Audit Office detected more than 167 million unduly paid in the set of benefits between 2016 and 2022. Of these, 4.7 million corresponded to the undue benefits for young people who were formerly in care, which the Government has approved condone This Tuesday, a decision agreed upon between the PSC, ERC, and Comuns.

The Royal Household has audited its accounts since 2015, and for the first time since then, it has ended a year in the red. The institution closed 2024 with a deficit of €99,591.80, according to the Court of Auditors' annual report released this Monday. In the previous year, on the contrary, the result was positive, with a balance of €379,996. In 2022, the Royal Household also closed the year with a surplus of €407,402.

When the Court of Auditors announced the sanction of more than 800,000 euros in Vox for irregular financing, In a brief press release dated April 30, the Spanish parliament reported that two councilors had cast a dissenting vote against the resolution. These were Javier Morillas and José Manuel Otero, whom some sources consulted by ARA attributed to the "more conservative" wing of the organization. What that communication didn't say is that, in the plenary session, the vote was a razor-thin 7 to 6 in favor of imposing this significant fine on the far-right party.

The Spanish far-right is in the spotlight of investigations and sanctions for irregular financing. Both Vox and Alvise Pérez's Se ha Acabado la Fiesta (SALF) are accumulating problems in this area with fines imposed and open investigations. The Court of Auditors already hit Vox hard last year with two fines totaling €233,000, and again this year, with €862,000. Even the PSOE filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which opened an investigation into the party for irregular financing stemming from alleged anonymous donations. According to ARA, the Public Prosecutor's Office will decide in the coming days whether to file a complaint against Vox or close the investigation. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is investigating Pérez for a €100,000 cash donation from Álvaro Portillo, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and alleged mass fraudster.

During the independence process, the independence movement relied on the slogan, "Europe is watching us," which gained popularity and was ridiculed by Spanish nationalism. Now, civil Spanish nationalism is also catching on to this European hope, in this case seeking justice to overturn the amnesty in cases of embezzlement and, consequently, prevent the return of exiles—among them former President Carles Puigdemont—who simultaneously have a criminal case open in the Supreme Court. Paradoxically, those who had sanctified the rulings of the Constitutional Court have now lost faith in them because there is a progressive majority.

Aliança Catalana has failed its first examination before the Court of Auditors: The auditing body has detected serious irregularities regarding its financing in the elections that placed Silvia Orriols at the head of the Ripoll mayor's office. It is not, however, the only Catalan party that is itching to be arrested in the report on electoral expenditure for the 2023 municipal electionsTogether for Catalonia –under the brand Compromís Municipal– and Valents –the party founded by Eva Parera

The Public Prosecutor's Office will maintains its offensive against the Catalan Independence Bid in the Court of Auditors, but it is reducing its harshness. The lawsuit filed on Wednesday against 35 former Catalan government officials over the 2017 referendum and the Generalitat's foreign action between 2011 and 2017 reduces the damages claimed back to €3.4m. It is a third of the €9m for which the defendants were forced to present bail. Even so, although the state attorney general, Dolores Delgado, appointed Manuel Martín-Granizo, of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors, the public prosecutor's office will still be part of the accusation, alongside Societat Civil Catalana, which a few days ago already presented its accusation.

First plot twist in the Court of Auditors case after the body renewed its councillors. This Monday the courtroom has decided to accept the bond offered by the Institut Català de Finances to pay the €5.4m bail former Generalitat Foreign Office workers are facing, El País explained and ARA has confirmed. Initially, the delegate rejected this mechanism created by the Generalitat arguing that it could not cover the conducts of the thirty officials under investigation. The investigating delegate considered that the Generalitat's decree was legal, but that it did not cover those cases in which those involved had acted with "malice, guilt or gross negligence".

A dozen MPs have gone against the whip in the confirmation vote for Constitutional Court nominees. A total of 249 MPs have taken part. These were members of the Socialist Party (PSOE), Podemos, the People's Party (PP), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and some minor parties. The three parties that were part of the agreement had a total of 243 MPs, but Enrique Arnaldo's candidacy obtained 232 votes, meaning 11 MPs have gone against the whip. Concepción Espejel has been elected with 237 votes and Juan Ramón Sáez and Inmaculada Montalbán with 240, so there are 3 MPs who have overturned the global agreement. The vote was electronic and secret, but PSOE MP Odón Elorza has already made public that he rejected Arnaldo's candidacy. As for the votes for the Court of Auditors, the aspirants obtained 239 votes – except for José Manuel Otero, 238 – and 10 were blank.

The Court of Auditors has become the indirect protagonist of the traditional floral offering in the cemetery of Montjuïc to pay homage to Lluís Companys, shot by Franco's regime on October 15, 1940. The Catalan Government, Parliament and several parties attended the Fossar de la Pedrera and they have all been critical of the case against Catalan government officials. It is a reminder that, 81 years later, repression does not stop. The reading from all sides has been that, despite the fact that there are no longer any executions, the Catalan institutions are still being persecuted. Some have even said that now no one is being killed but the "civil death" of some political leaders is being sought.

In politics, coincidences are always suspicious. When not even an hour had passed since the announcement of the agreement between the PP and the PSOE to renew the Constitutional Court, the Ombudsman, the Data Protection Agency and the Court of Auditors, this last institution published a note in which it rejected payment by the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) of the bails required from defendants in case of the Catalan government's foreign action. And then it ordered to proceed to seise the assets of all of them to cover a €5.4m bail. It is certainly alarming that, shortly after it became known that the Court of Auditors, until now controlled by the PP through former minister Margarita Mariscal de Gante, would be renewed, the investigator of the Foreign Affairs case, Esperanza García, published a decision that, in addition to appearing to be a political revenge against the independence movement, means de facto a conviction without any trial having taken place.

The Court of Auditors continues its offensive against thirty former senior Generalitat officials investigated over the Catalan government's foreign action between 2011 and 2017, El País and El Mundo report and Efe has confirmed. The instructing delegate, Esperanza García, has decided to reject the guarantee the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) put forward to cover the bail of €5.4m imposed in June. Although she demanded that the money be paid urgently, the defendants devised a formula to avoid having to respond with their personal assets and the Government drew up a decree for the ICF to cover the bail. This alternative was endorsed by the Council of Statutory Guarantees and investigated by the Catalan Prosecutor's Office.

The State Attorney's Office does not believe it is appropriate that it take a position on whether the Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF) should be allowed to act as bail guarantor for the accused in the Court of Auditors case. It believes this would violate the principles of "impartiality" and "objectivity" that ought to govern an administrative process. The State Attorney's Office remarks that the case, in which former Generalitat officials have been required to post a €5m bail over the Catalan Government's foreign action, is in a preliminary phase which is of "administrative and not jurisdictional nature" and that, therefore, the State Attorney has to maintain a neutral role. In fact, in the report it recalls that the court cannot determine whether the decree approved by the Generalitat in July is illegal or not. As it has not been declared unconstitutional, it can only decide whether the decree protects the guarantees.

The State Attorney's Office will not respond to the Court of Auditors on whether it should accept the Catalan Institute of Finances (ICF) guarantees in the Court of Auditors case, but has recalled that the the decree law through which the fund was created has not been suspended or declared unconstitutional. Spanish Attorney General Consuelo Castro Rey's opinion had been expected for weeks and has been published this Tuesday. The Court of Auditors asked State Attorney Rafael García Monteys if he believed the mechanism that some thirty defendants had chosen to deal the bonds was legal, after the Generalitat created a risk fund created that enabled the ICF to act as insurer of public workers so their assets are not preventively seized.

The Court of Auditors could jeopardise the case on the Generalitat's external action. So says Rafael García Monteys, the State lawyer who was part of the accusation during the instruction phase of the procedure, who prefers not to answer the request raised by Court of Auditors to report on whether the risk fund created by the Catalan government to pay the €5.4m bails faced by former officials is legal. As advanced this Wednesday by newspaper Abc, the civil servant escalated the request to the State's top lawyer, Consuelo Castro, so that she may decide on the convenience of resolving the Court's doubts. García Monteys believes this would entail a "risk of nullity", because "the necessary objectivity and impartiality that must govern the advisory function" could be affected. This is because the state lawyer participated in the investigation.

The Minister of the Economy, Jaume Giró, has had an intense start to his term in office. This very week, the Consell de Garanties and the Parliament have validated the decree to face the bonds of the Court of Auditors, and in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy he has known the figures that will allow him to make the budget.

The possibility that the Court of Auditors will not accept the guarantee that has covered the Institut Català de Finances (Catalan Finance Institute, ICF) for the 34 people who are in the Foreign Affairs case has made their defences move to find a plan B to prevent the former high-ranking officials of the Generalitat from being seized. In fact, this has been the case since the Government realised that no bank would play in the operation to guarantee them, when it was still intended to keep the ICF out of the equation. It could still be left out if, once the Council of Statutory Guarantees has ruled on the constitutionality of the fund, a bank decides to become a guarantor.

The Council of Statutory Guarantees (CSG) has backed the Government's decree to act as guarantor, through the Institut Català de Finances (ICF), for the €5.4m bonds the Court of Auditors has imposed on 34 current and former Generalitat senior officials over the Catalan administration's foreign action between 2011 and 2017. The CSG voted unanimously to validate the plan despite requesting two modifications that Parliament, by majority, has incorporated into the bill: that the involvement of the ICF is "exceptional" and "limited in time" and that it is made clear that those affected have to return the money to the Generalitat in case of a final ruling.

The Catalan Parliament has approved the Government's most controversial decree since it took over two months ago: the creation of a Complementary Risk Fund for public workers. It has been devised to pay the €5.4m bail demanded by the Court of Auditors from 34 current and former government officials over the Catalan administration's foreign action between 2011 and 2017. It seeks to prevent the accused from having their assets seized.