A written procedural battle. That is what the investigation of the Montoro case has become, which in recent weeks has been a constant tug-of-war between the defenses of the investigated and the accusations. “It’s a mess. We are flooded with appeals,” complains one of the parties in the proceedings to ARA. And it is that, through a battery of “cascading” appeals, the lawyers try to stop the investigation by attacking it mainly on four elements: the casual finding that originated the case, the jurisdiction of the Tarragona courts, the duration of the secrecy of the proceedings and the last extension of the investigation. And all of that, added to other obstacles that have appeared, hinders the course of the investigation. What is being investigated is the payment of bribes by certain gas companies in exchange for Cristóbal Montoro, who was Minister of Finance, to promote changes in laws in the Congress of Deputies to benefit them.

The investigation into Cristóbal Montoro has reached the courts in Tarragona. A 249-page report from the Tax Agency, to which ARA has had access, details the operation through which gas companies attempted to conceal payments made to Equipo Económico, the firm founded by Montoro, who was Minister of Finance at the time, in exchange for the tax on economic activities. They established "three initial layers." First, the total agreed-upon amount was divided among different payers. Then, the amount corresponding to each company was broken down into "small sums" to make it more difficult to trace. Finally, the payment was made into at least "two different bank accounts." Furthermore, the payments were made with a deferral under the formal guise of a "success bonus" to distance them from their true origin. However, the payments "coincided temporally" with the progress of the legislative changes.

The judge in the Montoro case takes another step in the investigation. The head of court number 2 in Tarragona, who is investigating the alleged scheme of tax favors to companies from the Ministry of Finance In exchange for financial benefits, he has requested a whole series of documents from the former PP minister and the companies under investigation. In a ruling that also extends the investigation for another six months, Judge Rubén Rus grants the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and requires the judicial police to provide a whole series of information, including the deeds of constitution and dissolution of the marital property regimes of several of those under investigation, such as Montoro himself. He also requests the complete registry entries, reports, and annual accounts between 2008 and 2025 of Equipo Económico, the firm linked to the former minister and which investigators place at the epicenter of the alleged corruption network, and of other companies, including those listed.

For many years, the autonomous communities knew exactly how much money they would have to prepare their budgets for the following year thanks to a figure written inside an envelope given to the Secretary of Economy before the summer. Literally. This was done at the end of the meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council held in Madrid, where the Spanish government holds the deciding vote, dominating any decision. The communities under the common regime accepted this, while the chartered communities remained observers with voice but no vote, because they didn't need to. Incredibly, a white envelope containing a mysterious figure was handed out, announcing how much of the money collected in Catalonia would be transferred to the central government for spending in Catalonia. Spending on what? On community responsibilities, basically public services such as healthcare, education, social services, and security. This is how the system works: controlling tax collection and transferring funds according to the whims of the central government's interests through an opaque and arbitrary system that could never be predicted with certainty. In 2008, Cristóbal Montoro took advantage of the debt crisis to push Catalonia to the brink of bankruptcy and blackmail it by threatening to withhold the salaries of hundreds of thousands of public employees. Chronically underfunded, the Generalitat (Catalan government) had been forced to go to the markets and borrow to provide services. When the markets closed due to the crisis, Montoro saw an opportunity to tighten spending and stifle management. The 2008 crisis not only shook the Catalan economy; it structurally altered the financial relationship between the Generalitat and the Spanish State. In this context of falling revenues and virtually impossible access to the markets, the Spanish government created the Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA), a mechanism initially conceived as a way to rescue liquidity so that the autonomous communities could pay their debts and suppliers. But the political translation of that decision is clear: when an autonomous community cannot finance itself normally, it becomes dependent on the State for funds.

Cristóbal Montoro, the longest-serving Minister of the Treasury in history (he held the position under José María Aznar as president from 2000 to 2004 and under Mariano Rajoy from 2011 to 2018), is charged along with 27 other people with alleged bribery, fraud against the public administration, and his alleged relationship with senior officials and the firm he founded, Equipo Económico.

2012-2013. Citizens picked up their medications at pharmacies, but many did so with the anguish of thinking what would happen if we stopped being able to buy them. Now we know that all of this could have been avoided.

September 26, 2017, 10:02 a.m. The head of the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF), José Manuel de Alarcón Estella, sends an email to the director of the Tax Agency (AEAT), Santiago Menéndez Menéndez. He notifies him of the results of a tax analysis on a journalist. The journalist is Javier Chicote, head of the investigation for the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF).Abc"The email contains a report with your tax information and your relationships with other taxpayers" and it appears that "they will initiate a tax inspection," the Mossos d'Esquadra state in a 2022 document included. to the summary of the Cristóbal Montoro case to which ARA has had accessThis communication raised suspicions among the Catalan judicial police because the tax investigation into Chicote "seems to coincide with the first news stories published by the journalist regarding the Minister of Finance and his relationship with the Economic Team (EE) law firm, which began in April 2017." [My case is crystal clear: I'm being inspected by the top brass of the Treasury. I'm not the president of a bank. I'm a self-employed person with a normal turnover.

The case being investigated by Tarragona judge Rubén Ruso regarding Cristóbal Montoro is limited to the fact that he tailors laws in exchange for money through the Economic Team office. The press or, much more seriously, ordering tax inspections of inconvenient journalists or politicians as a method of intimidating them. The newspaper's investigation Abc, who is the first to publish information about the shady dealings at the firm founded by Montoro, and Carles Mulet, a senator from the Compromís party who engaged in heated debates with the minister in the upper house.

Last year, the Spanish courts blocked the Andorran judicial investigation into Operation Catalunya by closing the letter rogatory. The World The case seeking the indictment of former Spanish President Mariano Rajoy and former Interior and Finance Ministers Jorge Fernández Díaz and Cristóbal Montoro has now been reactivated, according to information obtained by ARA. Judge Stéphanie Garcia has again issued letters rogatory in Spain to the competent judicial authority to summon the political and judicial leaders of the Andorran branch of this alleged anti-independence plot.

The Spanish elections had just taken place, and the People's Party (PP) was about to return to the Moncloa Palace when Cristóbal Montoro's future chief of staff, Felipe Martínez Rico, arranged a meeting with mid-level officials in the Catalan government. At the time, Artur Mas was president—he had been in the Palau for just over a year, and the economic crisis was already rampant—and Martínez Rico leveraged his contacts within the Catalan government's economic team to offer them the services of Equipo Económico (EE). According to various sources consulted by ARA, the offer didn't specify a specific service, but the conversation revealed that hiring the firm founded by Montoro would improve relations with the future PP government. Martínez Rico, who wore the Economic Team hat during that meeting, already knew he would end up in the Treasury and the minister's team, which it was also clear at that point would be Montoro. The Economy Department, headed at the time by Minister Andreu Mas-Colell, declined to hire him.

The Montoro case has shaken the PP, upending its plans and throwing it into disarray at a time that was already sweet because the Spanish government was under siege due to the Cerdán case. "Who knows what else could come out; that will have a big impact," maintains a PP leader, who suggests that this case could significantly damage the party. It is a fear and concern that runs deep within the party. While some, despite acknowledging this, want to play it down, all the voices consulted by ARA indicate that the case has interrupted the political dynamic of cornering the state executive, and has given Pedro Sánchez oxygen, at least for the moment. But it has also brought to light another factor: the old wars within the party, although some sources want to downplay this. Revenge is emerging against the former Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro himself and also against his political family, the Sorayismo, linked to the former Spanish vice president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, of which he was a prominent loyalist, also in the leadership struggle with Pablo CasadoMeanwhile, the party's leadership is trying to continue targeting the PSOE for the cases affecting it and to shield its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. etc., had passed by his office...", this source speculates, adding that, in his opinion, digging into the tax data of rivals such as Esperanza Aguirre or José Manuel Soria already reveals "mafia-like behavior" due to "personal confrontations." However, many of those affected belong to the liberal sector and the most hardline wing of the hardline wing of the wing. It is likely that there are members seeking revenge." Because it is once again circulating that a section of the hardline wing, which does not control the party, wants to liquidate former Sorayistas.

Cristóbal Montoro has been a powerful man within the Spanish state. He served twice as Minister of Finance, in the governments of Aznar and Rajoy, at times accumulating more important functions, such as the Civil Service and the Relations with Territorial Administrations, that is, everything related to public employees, autonomous regions, and local authorities. Now we discover, or rather confirm, that in addition to being a powerful man, he has also been a shadowy figure.

The case that affects the alleged corruption of former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro has taken another turn. The Tarragona judge investigating the plot has made it clear in several rulings, which were released this Thursday, that he sees no crime in Montoro, now charged with multiple offenses, receiving emails from his team containing tax information of politicians from different parties, including his opponents. Thus, he denies the appearance of former PP minister Rodrigo Rato and former Podemos leader Juan Carlos Monedero as injured parties, because he sees no illegality in the theft of their data, as they were "fully authorized" and "legitimate" to receive it, according to the judge. On the other hand, he has accepted the appearance of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), the only one he has validated, while he has rejected that of a journalist.

The surprising thing about the Montoro case is that, after everything that has transpired regarding the judge's indictment, this figure can continue to live a normal life. Aside from being investigated for having manipulated laws to benefit private interests that harmed the general interest, the Prosecutor's Office confirmed that Cristóbal Montoro, while he was Minister of Finance, received emails containing confidential data from the Tax Agency regarding other politicians and celebrities in Spanish life.

In the glorious era of Minister Montoro, all kinds of artists of the pen, the guitar, or poetry were subject to tax inspections. In an inspection, you must first pay, and then, if there's money left, prove your innocence. Managers affiliated with Mr. Montoro's party, who believed themselves untouchable precisely because of their membership ("I do what I can, they won't tell me anything"), promised and manipulated. They all had a small economic team tailored to their needs. If we workers were a little more important, a Montoro would have come to us and said: "Don't worry, I'll change the law so you don't have to pay 500 euros a month in fees, which are among the most expensive in Europe, to have the right to work." And he would have also said: "Don't worry, I'll let you deduct a little on gasoline, a little clothing, and a little per diem so you can travel around the world."

The client portfolio of the law firm founded by former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro in 2006 extends beyond private sector companies. Equipo Económico also invoiced revenue from public administrations. One of these, according to the summary of the investigation by Tarragona's investigating court number two, is the Regional Government of Galicia. An extensive report from the Tax Agency incorporated into the case in 2020 reveals a payment of €172,838 made by the regional government to Equipo Económico. The specific services and year for which payment are not specified, but it is clear that it was made between 2008 and 2019.

Watching Montoro on television brings back memories of one of the worst times we've ever lived through, that of the savage cuts that further aggravated the economic crisis. We will forever associate the Great Recession of 2008 with the relentless measures taken by governments to supposedly mitigate its effects. A prescription that not only failed to cure a sick economic system, but almost finished it off. The fallacious mantra they repeatedly told us was the only possible remedy still resonates in our memories: either austerity, or catastrophe, chaos, and disaster. But for many workers, many families, and many small and medium-sized businesses, what happened was precisely the annihilation of their livelihoods. There are those who never raised their heads again, and that widespread feeling of loss and helplessness began at that moment. Companies that worked for the public sector and went bankrupt, others that lived on debt and had to fold when the banks turned off the tap that seemed destined to flow forever. The blame for the collapse of that system, in which the economy grew thanks to massive credit doping, was placed on the very people who were the victims.

The Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies (FAES) was founded in 2002 as a result of the merger of five foundations linked to the Popular Party (PP). When he left the Moncloa Palace in 2004, José María Aznar effectively assumed the presidency of this foundation. And in the summary of the Montoro case, the alleged corruption case affecting the top brass of the Treasury, the FAES appears on more than one occasion.

This article is about the Montoro case, albeit from a slightly different perspective. That's why I'd like to begin by opening a prudent parenthesis in the form of a question. The fact that a case that's been going on for years, more than a decade, has become public immediately after Of another very serious case of corruption affecting Pedro Sánchez's government, should it be attributed to chance? And the fact that—to give just one example—a newspaper aligned with the current PSOE government ran its front-page headline last Sunday, "The case of the former PP minister rebalances the political battle," should that be considered a mere journalistic interpretation or a programmatic prescription? I'll close the parenthesis.

Initially, the gas companies were met with a resounding rejection. In October 2013, a law was passed that allowed certain sectors an 85% reduction in the taxable base of the electricity tax. Some gas manufacturers approached the Ministry of Finance, requesting that they, as an industry in which the electricity consumed accounts for more than 50% of the cost of the product they manufacture, also qualify for this discount. The ministry's response at the time was that the "limitations imposed by the restrictive budgetary framework" made it impossible. Even the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT) concluded that extending the tax reduction to this type of company would be "difficult to control."