Política

The dotted line through which the tentacles of the plot allegedly led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero extend internationally has a special stop in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). The case reveals that the former president sought to set up a commercial lobby between the United Arab Emirates, Spain, and Latin America to expand his influence. The idea, together with his trusted man Julio Martínez, and an expert in commercial transactions in the Arab country, Tomás Guerrero Blanco, was to help Arab companies enter the Spanish or Latin American market and vice versa.

The opposition groups already demanded a few days ago in the Interior commission of the Parliament the dismissal of the councilor of the department, Núria Parlon, and the general director of the Police, Josep Lluís Trapero, for infiltrating agents of the Mossos d’Esquadra in a teachers’ assembly within the framework of the protests of the educational sector, an act for which both leaders apologized to the representatives of the teachers.

The case against Vito Quiles for assaulting the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez, has been dismissed as it could not be proven that there are “facts of criminal relevance” in the recordings that the far-right agitator shared on his social media.

The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has blocked the accounts of the former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero while investigating the flow of money that he could have received for his influences among other things so that the Government approved the bailout of the airline Plus Ultra. Specifically, he has agreed to block the balances of his accounts up to the limit of 490,780 euros, which is the amount received from the company Análisis Relevante, whose administrator is his friend and also investigated Julio Martínez Martínez.

The Government’s parliamentary partners are expressing increasing concern and alarm following the judicial indictment of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for several alleged corruption offenses linked to the multimillion-dollar economic bailout of the airline Plus Ultra during the pandemic crisis. However, at least for now, the Executive does not see this parliamentary support at risk to keep afloat a legislature that Pedro Sánchez intends to complete within a year, by July 2027.

A report from the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) concludes that the bailout of the airline Plus Ultra was “legal and transparent.” SEPI issues this study in response to the suspicions of the National Court judge José Luis Calama, who is investigating the Zapatero case and believes that this bailout was not lawful. In the order issued by the magistrate, it is considered that Plus Ultra was in a state of bankruptcy at the time of the bailout. Consequently, the government of Pedro Sánchez could not save it since the applicable European law at that time, March 2021, strictly prohibited rescuing companies in dissolution.

The Government has defended this Thursday, with an extensive document, the loan of 53 million euros granted on March 9, 2021 to the airline Plus Ultra. A financial aid, charged to the support fund for the solvency of strategic companies after the coronavirus pandemic crisis, now in the eye of the legal, political, and media storm following the indictment of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for alleged corruption crimes that would have their origin in this Executive rescue.

The eight companies identified by Judge José Luis Calama for serving to channel payments to former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero barely function as shells without activity or employees, through which money flows in and out via few accounting entries, as can be seen in their accounts filed with the Mercantile Registry.

Comuns has given their approval to the Generalitat’s budget agreement for this year after reaching a pact with the Govern on an update to the agreement already reached in February, which highlights an additional investment of 2.5 billion euros in housing policies that are added to those already agreed upon then, 1.2 billion for the Pla de Barris, and a new law to convert empty offices and premises into official protected housing (HPO).

The broker Víctor de Aldama has denied this Thursday before the judge of the National Court Ismael Moreno that neither Francina Armengol, current president of the Congress of Deputies, in her time as president of the Balearic Islands, nor anyone from her government asked for or received commissions for the contract that was awarded to her company, Soluciones de Gestión, for the acquisition of medical supplies during the pandemic.