Rodrigo Alonso, deputy of Vox, during the presentation of the Solidarity union in 2020.VOX (Europa Press)
Vox's union arm, Solidaridad, has not made its accounts public since it was founded, in 2020, in breach of the Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance Law.
This 2013 law obliges trade union organizations to publish their budgets and annual accounts on their website, which Solidaridad did not do in the 2021 financial year nor in the 2022 financial year. The obligation, according to legal sources, is independent of the fact that the union may or may not receive public subsidies, since its affiliates can deduct their union dues in the income statement, so there is always public financing, even if it is indirect.
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Vox transferred two million euros more to the foundation chaired by Abascal without informing its affiliates
The financing of the union arm of Vox is a mystery.
When he announced his creation at an electoral campaign rally for the Galician Parliament, in July 2020, the leader of the ultra party, Santiago Abascal, assured that the new union organization would be financed only with the fees of his affiliates.
However, according to sources close to Vox, the party would have made a significant financial donation to the union last year, although this transfer cannot be confirmed until its 2022 accounts are known, at the annual spring assembly, if it is not delayed until cause of the elections.
But Vox also finances Solidarity in other ways.
The general secretary of the union, Rodrigo Alonso, charges as deputy of the ultra party in the Andalusian regional Parliament;
and his visible face in Valencia, David Gomis, occupies a seat in the Valencian Parliament.
The opacity of the union's accounts makes it impossible to know if it also receives financing from individuals, associations or companies.
When he announced his creation, Abascal presented Solidarity as the only union organization capable of "protecting workers from subsidized, ideological and corrupt unions", alluding to Comisiones Obreras and UGT.
Solidarity is publicly presented as the scourge of the alleged corruption of the class unions, which have become the main objective of their campaigns, with propaganda actions in front of their headquarters, attempts to burst their acts and judicial complaints, including the appearance as an accusation popular in the case of the diversion of funds from Fogasa (Salary Guarantee Fund).
Last Friday, the ultra union came to request that the trial for the fraud of the ERE (Employment Regulation File) in Andalusia culminates with the illegalization of CC OO, UGT and the Andalusian PSOE;
which would add to the illegalization of the nationalist parties (PNV, Bildu, ERC or Junts) that Abascal is already demanding.
Donations to Dissent
Vox responded this Saturday to the information from EL PAÍS that revealed that its National Executive Committee approved in February 2022 the transfer of two million euros to the Disenso Foundation, without informing of this decision in the assembly held two months later, on April, alleging, in internal communications to its affiliates, that this transfer of funds had indeed been reported.
To do this, he used the references made in the assembly by treasurer Pablo Sáez to the donation of 2.5 million made in 2021 to the same foundation, ignoring that it is a transfer of funds different from the one approved in February 2022. Finally, Vox argued that this latest decision will be reported at the next party assembly;
that is, at least 14 months after having adopted it.
Vox did not respond, on the other hand, to the fact that Abascal appears as a lifelong patron of Disenso and that, according to the foundation's statutes, he cannot be removed from its leadership when he ceases to be president of the party, unless he resigns voluntarily.
The formation was limited to ensuring, through a tweet, that "Vox and its Fundación Disenso are the most transparent party and foundation in Spain."
However, Disenso does not have its statutes accessible on the web, like similar foundations.
Vox defends the suppression of public subsidies to the unions and boasts of having cut them in Castilla y León —where it governs in coalition with the PP—, but it no longer defends, as in 2018, the elimination of aid to foundations such as Disenso.
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