New twist in the ERE case: the judge prosecutes seven former high-ranking officials of the Junta de Andalucía for aid of 54 million

The head of the Investigating Court number 6 of Seville, José Ignacio Vilaplana, has agreed to continue as an abbreviated procedure the case against seven former high-ranking officials of the Junta de Andalucía in a separate part of the ERE case. The investigation focuses on the aid granted to the company Boliden Apirsa and to its group of former workers, which amount to a total of 54,279,986.16 euros.

According to the judicial order, notified on Wednesday by the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Andalucía, the facts could constitute crimes of “administrative prevarication, embezzlement of public funds, and documentary falsehood”. The magistrate has referred the case to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the accusations so that, within a period of twenty days, they request the opening of an oral trial or the dismissal of the case.

Among those investigated is the former socialist councilor Manuel Recio Menéndez, along with three former vice-councilors, two former general directors of Labor and Social Security and a former general director of the Agencia IDEA. All of them held positions during regional governments of the PSOE in Andalucía.

In parallel, the judge has agreed to the provisional dismissal for former councilors Antonio Fernández and Martín Soler, considering that “no solid evidence is found in the case” that allows attributing to them a criminally relevant participation in the investigated facts. The investigating judge emphasizes that there is no conclusive evidence that both had a direct role in the irregular granting of aid.

The order details that the subsidies were allegedly granted “in an unfair and arbitrary manner” to finance indemnities derived from the ERE of Boliden Apirsa. Most of the amount, 52.5 million euros, was allocated to a collective temporary income insurance policy subscribed by the unions CCOO and UGT with Vitalicio Seguros.

Furthermore, the judge is analyzing another aid of 1.7 million euros intended to complement said policy through additional life annuities. These amounts were part of a system of socio-labor aid for former workers which, according to the investigation, would have been managed in an irregular manner within the framework of different re-employment plans.

Finally, the judicial resolution also focuses on the compensations granted to former workers who were not relocated between 2008 and 2011. According to the magistrate, these plans were “intermittent” and not always fulfilled, which resulted in new public aid.