The European Commission is preparing a serious warning to Spain for its limited progress in the fight against corruption. The draft 2026 Rule of Law Report, whose official publication is scheduled for this Friday, calls for accelerating pending reforms and strengthening the bodies responsible for monitoring, investigating, and sanctioning irregularities.
The community document offers a picture with chiaroscuro. Brussels recognizes the impetus of several legislative projects and values some measures approved during the last year, but warns that a good part of these changes remain stuck in Congress or still lack effective application. The biggest reproaches affect public procurement, conflicts of interest, the regulation of lobbying groups, and the long duration of major judicial cases.
The content of the chapter dedicated to Spain has been advanced by ‘Agenda Pública’ and ‘elDiario.es’. This first version of the document mainly analyzes the situation recorded during 2025 and is part of the annual review carried out by the Commission to the Twenty-Seven.
A growing social concern
The report reflects that nine out of ten Spaniards believe that corruption is widespread in the country. Social perception has worsened over the last five years and places Spain in 17th place among community partners and 49th in the world ranking.
The concern has also spread to companies that work with administrations. Four out of ten companies participating in public tenders believe that corruption has prevented them from securing a contract during the last three years, ten points above the European average.
Brussels also detects a rapid deterioration of business confidence in the functioning of awards. The percentage of companies that consider the Spanish public procurement system independent has fallen from 61% to 44% in just one year.
The Commission speaks of "persistent and systemic weaknesses" related to integrity, the scarce concurrence of offers, and the difficulties in following the path of administrative decisions. Service contracts and those linked to critical infrastructures appear among the most exposed areas.
Public contracts remain in the risk zone
Public procurement continues to be for Brussels a "high-risk area for corruption". 34% of Spanish tenders receive a single bid, compared to the 28% registered as the average in the European Union, a difference that limits competition and increases the risks of irregularities.
The Commission calls for more effective external controls on administrations and sectors that handle larger amounts of public money. The Open Administration Bill approved by the Government appears as one of the positively valued measures, as it aims to strengthen the Council for Transparency and Good Governance.
The norm would for the first time convert the Council into an independent administrative authority and expand its capacity to sanction bodies that refuse to deliver public information. The project is still pending completion of its parliamentary processing, so its effects cannot yet be measured.
The Anti-Corruption Plan advances too slowly
The European Commission acknowledges the approval of the State Plan against Corruption announced by Pedro Sánchez in the summer of 2025, after the investigation of the Koldo case reached the then Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán.
The plan includes measures in five main areas: the prevention of irregularities, the strengthening of controls, the protection of whistleblowers and informants, the recovery of assets from crimes, and the increase of transparency and citizen participation. Brussels considers its approval positive, but calls for faster execution and verifiable results.
The Community Executive also analyzes the Public Integrity Bill, which proposes grouping the Office of Conflicts of Interest, the Independent Authority for the Protection of Informants, and a future National Anti-Fraud Agency. The intention is to bring together in a single body the competencies currently dispersed among different institutions.
For Brussels, this future supervisor will have to have true independence and sufficient powers to investigate and impose sanctions. A formal structure without budget, personnel, or executive capacity would be insufficient given the volume and complexity of the irregularities detected.
Controls over high-ranking officials remain weak
Another of the main reproaches affects the control of conflicts of interest and the asset declarations of high-ranking officials. The draft states that the responsible office presents a limited capacity to detect, deter, and sanction inappropriate conduct.
The Commission demands more stringent rules on incompatibilities, assets, and professional relationships of those who leave the Administration to join private companies. It also asks that controls can be initiated actively, without exclusively depending on complaints or information provided by those affected themselves.
The Public Integrity Bill attempts to respond to some of these demands, although its application remains pending. Brussels expects the future agency to have functional and financial autonomy and to be able to effectively supervise officials with greater responsibility.
No real progress in lobby regulation
Spain also continues without approving a complete regulation of interest groups. The European Commission has been demanding a public and mandatory register for lobbyists for several years, accompanied by information on their meetings with political leaders and high-ranking officials of the Administration.
The project aimed at increasing the transparency of these activities remains blocked in Congress. The report also maintains its reservations about the financing of political parties, an area in which it considers the progress made during the last year insufficient.
The Independent Authority for the Protection of Whistleblowers has also not managed to fill its entire staff despite the increase in work. Since September 2025, it has received around 400 complaints, while its budgetary limitations hinder the management and protection of those who report possible irregularities. Brussels asks to guarantee the necessary resources to prevent complaints from getting caught in administrative delays.
Major corruption cases continue to last too long
The duration of high-level corruption proceedings once again appears among the main community concerns. Cases such as Gürtel, Púnica, Lezo, or Kitchen remain open or awaiting definitive resolutions more than a decade after their investigations began.
During 2025, 19 new corruption cases were opened at the state and autonomous community levels. Of the 76 procedures analyzed, 52 ended with convictions and 19 concluded with acquittals, according to the data collected in the draft.
The Commission attributes the slowness to the complexity of the investigations, the high number of people involved, the lengthy appeal procedures, and the lack of specialized judges. The document also does not note a significant increase in the activity of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, while the European Public Prosecutor's Office maintained four open procedures in Spain at the close of the year.
Brussels values, however, the creation of three new judicial positions in the Audiencia Nacional and the increase in the staff of the Public Prosecutor's Office. The reinforcement of personnel can help to relieve bodies accustomed to investigating the most complex economic cases.
The report arrives amidst a succession of convictions and procedures
The document will be published in a particularly complicated week for the Government and the PSOE. The Supreme Court condemned former minister José Luis Ábalos less than a month ago to 24 years and three months in prison for the Mascarillas case. His former advisor Koldo García received a sentence of 19 years and eight months, while Víctor de Aldama was sentenced to four and a half years.
The Provincial Court of Badajoz has also condemned David Sánchez this week, the president's brother, to nine years of disqualification for administrative prevarication. The court acquitted him of the crime of influence peddling, considering that it had not been proven who promoted the creation of the position he ended up occupying.
The Provincial Court of Madrid has also confirmed that Begoña Gómez will be tried by a popular jury for the alleged crimes of influence peddling and embezzlement. The same resolution eliminates corruption in business and misappropriation and revokes all personal precautionary measures imposed by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado.
These resolutions belong to independent procedures and the community report fundamentally analyzes data from 2025. Their temporal coincidence increases, however, political pressure on the Executive when Brussels demands concrete results in terms of prevention and control.
Brussels endorses part of the judicial reforms
The chapter on Spain also contains favorable assessments for the Government. According to the draft exclusively advanced by 'Agenda Pública', the Commission considers the reform of the Criminal Procedure Law a "significant progress", which would hand over the direction of criminal investigations to prosecutors.
The proposal includes an amendment to the Statute of the Public Prosecutor's Office to extend the term of the attorney general to five years and prevent it from coinciding with the period of the Government that proposes it. Brussels understands that both measures can strengthen the autonomy of the Public Prosecutor's Office and make investigations more agile.
The report also supports the limitation of popular action to prevent abuses and avoid its use for purposes unrelated to the general interest. The project would prevent political parties, organizations linked to them, and associations of judges or prosecutors from exercising it, in addition to requiring a direct connection with the protected public interest.
The Commission also values the creation of 500 new positions for judges and another 200 for prosecutors, a reinforcement aimed at correcting one of the lowest rates of magistrates per inhabitant in the European Union.
The Courts of First Instance receive a positive assessment
The Efficiency Law, which replaced the traditional single-judge courts with Courts of First Instance, is one of the few reforms that are already fully in force. Brussels considers that its first results have been positive, especially due to the reduction of civil cases after introducing prior conciliation mechanisms.
The number of civil proceedings would have fallen by about a third thanks to the obligation to first resort to alternative dispute resolution methods. The Commission warns, however, of an unequal application between autonomous communities and the lack of resources in larger municipalities.
Spain also maintains a prominent position in the digitalization of Justice. The report recognizes the advances of the Civil Registry, the Justice Folder, and the future regulation of the use of artificial intelligence in the courts, although it points out connection problems between the different state and regional systems.
The election of the CGPJ remains pending
The European Commission once again calls for changes in the system for electing the twelve judicial members of the General Council of the Judiciary. Brussels agrees with the Venice Commission that they should be chosen directly by members of the judiciary, without a subsequent election by Parliament.
The CGPJ approved two different proposals in 2025. The conservative bloc defended direct election among judges, while the progressive sector opted to maintain the intervention of the Cortes to guarantee pluralism within a predominantly conservative judiciary.
The Venice Commission supported peer election as the model most aligned with its standards, although it also warned of the risk that judicial associations might end up dominating the process. Brussels is now asking for new steps to complete a reform that continues without political agreement.
The Commission will keep Spain under surveillance
A representative of the European Commission confirmed this Thursday before the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions that Brussels will continue to study "very closely" the evolution of the rule of law and corruption in Spain.
The Community Executive recalls that its annual report is a preventive tool that examines both the progress and deficiencies of each Member State. Recommendations are drawn up based on information provided by national authorities, independent bodies, international organizations, and civil society entities.
The final document will be published this Friday, July 17. From that moment on, the Government will have to respond to recommendations that will be re-examined by Brussels in its next annual monitoring cycle.
Add ElConstitucional.es as a preferred Google source for free.
Stay informed about all the latest breaking news with the best information. Against disinformation, for democracy and social rights.
