Ada Colau, during a press conference the day her summons as investigated was known. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI (EL PAÍS)
The lawsuit that will force Ada Colau to testify as under investigation before a judge accuses the mayor of Barcelona of delivering a "rain of public money" to ideologically related entities. The so-called Association for Transparency and Democratic Quality (ATCD) affirms that the subsidies were granted “arbitrarily and discretionally” to “favor” these associations. The text, to which EL PAÍS has accessed, affects the payments of the consistory to prepare reports on water management and international cooperation.
The story of the complaint is very similar to that contained in a previous complaint, filed by another association, which has already been filed in a reasoned manner by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. If the first complaint was directed against Colau and six councilors and former councillors, this points only to the mayor and for five crimes: prevarication, contracting fraud, embezzlement, prohibited negotiations with officials and influence peddling. "It has been a constant that, since Ada Colau became mayor, there has been an abuse of direct granting of financing mechanisms to associations and groups."
As in that first filed complaint, this one examines the activity of four entities with which Colau and his team had working relationships before coming to power in 2015 and with which they maintain an evident affinity: the DESC Observatory (on social rights), Engineers without Borders, the Alliance against Energy Poverty or the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, of which Colau was spokesperson for five years.
The argument, in essence, is this: the mayor has showered generous subsidies on entities in her "ideological network" skipping the procedures established by law: they are direct subsidies for recurring services that, in reality, should have been done by contract.
The complaint is based on some reports from the Intervention of the Generalitat that question some aspects of the subsidies, but they are not negative reports. The lawyers, in fact, criticize the auditor for some reports that "are guilty of excessive prudence" and are "timid". In its investigation, the Prosecutor's Office has already examined all this documentation. It concluded that there was no "favorable treatment" for the entities, that they did not benefit especially from Colau's coming to power (they already received subsidies from the PSC or CiU governments) and that if there were "irregularities" they could be administrative, never criminal. .
The council, always according to the complaint, signed "agreements and direct subsidies" that, in reality, served to pay the salaries, for example, "of the workers of the DESC Observatory." But it also cites minor contracts to carry out "studies or reports" on aspects such as the "alleged defense of rights and the remunicipalization of services." Especially of the water. The ATCD already challenged in 2018 the macro consultation promoted by Colau in which it intended to ask about public water management. The complaint dedicates several passages to denouncing public disbursements in this sense. For example, a subsidy (4,500 euros) in 2020 on "Alliances to democratize water in Barcelona" that was granted again, unjustifiably, the following year.
The Barcelona City Council maintains open international cooperation programs (it is competent to do so) and within this framework it granted public subsidies to carry out studies.
Despite this, the complaint denounces the "frequent and abusive use of public funding" to execute international cooperation projects.
He cites as an example a work by Engineers Without Borders on “impunity” in the use of water and energy.
But also works on Peru and Mozambique.
"Stain the reputation"
The government of the Barcelona City Council sees in the complaint a "clear political intention of persecution with the aim of tarnishing its image and reputation". The Councilor for Citizenship Rights, Marc Serra, has appeared this Friday after reading the complaint filed by the Association for Transparency and Democratic Quality (ATCD) for alleged irregularities in the granting of subsidies to related entities and has assured that he does not contribute any novelty about the facts filed by the Prosecutor's Office as a result of another complaint, then from the entity Catalan Lawyers for the Constitution.
He has also pointed out, once again, his suspicions about the complainant entity, of which civic activity is not known and that reacts with legal actions "before any administration that wants to open the debate on water and its management."
“It seems that the ATCD is not concerned with subsidies but with the debate on public water management”, lamented Serra.
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The prosecution ruled out that Colau gave "favorable treatment" to related entities
“If we had said that we were calm, now we are even more so. We are angry about the abuse of rights that a complaint that is chaotic, disorderly, unfounded and that reproduces identical fragments of the complaint that was filed last July by the prosecution represents," said Serra. "The resolution was already very forceful stating that there was no crime and ruled out any favored treatment" to the entities receiving the subsidies, he added.
One of the lawyers of the team that will defend Colau, Àlex Solà, has also pointed out that the complaint contains "verbatim phrases" that were in the proceedings filed by the prosecution.
And he has called it an "act of procedural bad faith" that the complaint "hidden the file" by the public prosecutor's office in July of last year, after analyzing documentation provided by the consistory.
Solà has pointed out that the investigating court "has already asked the prosecution for the entire file and the filing decree."
Regarding the fact that the complaint is directed only towards the mayor and cites other councilors but only as witnesses, the lawyer understands that it indicates that "the objective of the action would be focused on getting the mayor to declare under investigation, using as primary material the stigmatization of the statement”.
The resignation of the mayor is "out of place", according to Collboni
The summons led Ciudadanos and the PP last Wednesday to request Colau's resignation in application of the code of ethics of Barcelona en comú, which establishes that any imputed public office must cease.
Colau ruled it out because the facts were archived, he argued.
The partner of the commons in the Government, Jaume Collboni, has affirmed this Friday that he sees the resignation requests “out of place”.
“Judicial decisions must be respected, but the presumption of innocence must always be maintained.”
"Things at the Barcelona City Council are done well," he concluded.