The Court of Accounts rejects Citizens' complaint for the Government's rescue of the Plus Ultra airline
The Court of Auditors has decided not to admit the public action brought by the leaders of Ciudadanos against the rescue of the Plus Ultra airline by the Government because the facts presented "do not show evidence of having led to the breach of the regulatory laws of the budget regime and stackable accounting to the public sector ".
The complaint was signed by Inés Arrimadadas, Luis Garicano and Edmundo Bal. Despite the file, the Account Counselor. In the filing order, to which elDiario.es has had access, the Account Counselor concludes that the 19 million euros injected into the company are "an ordinary loan and as such it has not caused an economic damage to public funds." Both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office had ruled in favor of the filing of the proceedings.
The "practitioners of the public action" alleged that the granting of the aid, for a total amount of 53 million, violated the regulations of the Fund for Support to the Solvency of Strategic Companies (FASEE) for not meeting Plus Ultras the necessary conditions for receive the aforementioned injection of public funds. The file order states that a position on the matter by the Court of Auditors would constitute an "excess of jurisdiction." The counselor who signs the order assures that his function involves evaluating whether there has been "impairment of public funds" and, in that case, transferring the proceedings to the Prosecution Section, which he does not do because he considers that such an assumption does not occur in this case.
Likewise, the counselor concludes that there is no "serious negligence", as Citizens denounced, in the persons and collegiate bodies responsible for granting the aid. "The administrative procedure provided for in the FASEE operating regulations has been respected, so that the aid has been proposed by the SEPI, resolved by the Fund Management Council and authorized by the Council of Ministers after issuing the corresponding reports by the legal and financial advisers, "he says. "Consequently - he adds - the conduct of those responsible for these actions does not have, even incidentally, the characteristics of gross negligence."
The order of the Court of Accounts is known the week after a judge in Madrid paralyzed the rescue to the airline, that is, the 34 million that remain to be contributed from the rescue on July 28. The head of the Court of Instruction number 15 of Madrid, Esperanza Collazos, files a complaint by Vox against the Government and the SEPI in which the Popular Party is also present.
Judge Collazos understands that continuing with this injection of money within the expected period, risking "an unjustified delivery" would mean "a significant loss of assets without the possibility of restoring it to a previous situation."