The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office suspects that certain legislative reforms promoted by the Ministry of Finance during the time of Cristóbal Montoro – and which are being investigated – could have caused damage to public coffers in favor of a series of private companies.
According to sources of the investigation that is being followed from the investigating court number 2 of Tarragona, it is being analyzed how far the hole in the State could have reached when it stopped collecting money as a result of having fiscally benefited certain companies advised by Equipo Economico, the law firm. founded by the head of the Treasury during the Mariano Rajoy governments and which he abandoned before being appointed minister.
The researchers' thesis is that there would be an agreement between the tax office Equipo Economía and the Treasury leadership itself to favor companies through modifications, reforms and new regulations. From the investigation it is clear that the companies went directly to the Economic Team under succulent payments to send reports to the Treasury with drafts or reform projects so that they could be approved by the Executive.
Different sources from that government at the time maintain privately that reports actually reached the Government's delegate commission for Economic Affairs that came directly from the office in question. Hence, it is being investigated whether a crime of influence peddling could have been committed between members of the tax office and the Treasury leadership. These same sources emphasize that Montoro's former connection with the firm was well known. On the one hand, his brother Ricardo continued in the office for a few more years after the departure of the former PP leader. In addition, the pre-existing relationship between the minister and the executive president of the office, Ricardo Martínez Rico, was known.
The first reform analyzed by the researchers is the one that modified the special tax on electricity, which benefited various gas companies included in the Association of Industrial and Medicinal Gas Manufacturers (Afgim) and represented by Equipo Economico, formerly called Montoro y Asociados.
One of the legs of the investigation initiated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, together with the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Civil Guard, is to determine whether those reforms promoted by the Ministry of Finance and that were approved generated economic damage.
From what they are analyzing, according to various sources, it appears that the hole – what was stopped from entering when the income from certain taxes was relaxed – could have been millionaires. The key to the matter, on the one hand, is that the Treasury would have carried out à la carte reforms, and on the other hand, that these would not have as their objective a general interest with a social benefit, but rather their sole purpose would be the benefit of specific companies. , in this case those included by the Afgim.
When consulted by various sources in the sector, they emphasize that this is precisely the difference between the work of a lobby and that of a company with the intention of using influence and acting through shortcuts.
The electricity tax reform is one of those that is in the crosshairs of investigators in a case that has been open since 2018 and remains secret.
