Publicado en Corporate
Europe Observatory
31 de marzo de 2016
Less than 18 months into the job,
Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete is immersed in
several scandals.
UPDATE:
On April 3rd, three days after
publishing this article, Commissioner Cañete came into the media spotlight
again due to his wife being among the people listed in the Panama Papers - the
scheme revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
(ICIJ) and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, of wealthy people using offshore companies
often constructed to hide wealth and avoid taxes. Micaela Domecq Solís-Beaumont
was empowered by the Panama-based company Rinconada Investments Group (set up
in 2005 and active until 2010) to approve financial transactions. Commissioner
Cañete did not include this company in his declaration of interests dated 19
September 2014 (nor in the latest one of 14 July 2015)
The Commission's spokeperson
Margaritis Schinas affirmed on 4th April that according to the information
provided by Commissioner Cañete there is no conflict of interest, as
Commissioner Cañete and his wife are married with a separation of property
agreements and that his declarations of interests was in line with the code of
conduct for Commissionners. He added that the company had been inactive for
several years, before the Commissioner took office (though was active when he
was holding office in Spain).
Once more Cañete is involved in a scandal related to
his and his immediate family's financial interests. For how long will the
Commission continue to defend its climate commissioner in the face of major
controversy?
Cañete is no stranger to
controversy: he was the subject of a 2014 petition by over half a million EU
citizens to prevent him from taking office due to his links with the oil
industry and the risk of conflicts of interest. Now he faces two more
controversies.
Spanish public company Acuamed, managed by the Spanish
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, is being investigated for fraud
over the irregular awarding of contracts when Cañete was Minister. The
Commissioner is also involved in fresh controversy in his current role, due to
the fact that in 2015 he gave the go-ahead for Australian company Berkeley to
exploit a uranium mine in Spain. Berkeley is represented in Brussels by Manuel
Lamela, who was Cañete's Deputy in the Spanish Agriculture Ministry for three
years.
Before his appointment Corporate Europe Observatory
(CEO) warned about the dangers of Cañete becoming Commissioner and has exposed
his extensive lobby contacts with the private sector during his first year of
office. Amidst the lack of coverage in the Brussels media on this story, CEO
joins several Spanish civil society organisations and political parties, as
well as several MEPs from different political groups in demanding that the
Commission investigates both cases, and holds Cañete accountable if evidence of
wrongdoing is found.
The Acuamed case and former Minister
Cañete
Acuamed, a public water management company under the
responsibility of the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Environment,
has been under investigation since January 2016 by the Spanish High Court for
an alleged fraud worth several million euro that took place over several years,
also when Commissioner Cañete was Minister (2011-2014).
The Court is investigating irregular contracts awarded
by Acuamed to several big construction companies, including Fomento de
Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), Acciona, Befesa, Sogecosa, and Altec. The
allegations are that those companies received water contracts in exchange for
'presents' such as luxury trips, jobs for relatives or cars for the persons
involved. Allegations also suggest that during the construction phase budgets
would be 'artificially inflated' by up to ten per cent of the cost, money that
would go into the pockets of the construction companies. As MEP Maite
Pagazaurtundúa Ruiz (ALDE) explains in her parliamentary question to the
Commission, Acuamed “is being investigated for fraud to the tune of almost
€27.5 million. [Spanish High Court] Judge Velasco and the Anti-Corruption
Public Prosecutor’s Office are examining allegations of fraud in the award of
works contracts, and of certificates, invoices and payments being falsified to
increase the amounts paid to the successful tenderers.”
The Acuamed contract that points most closely to
Commissioner Cañete is the contract to Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas
(FCC) for work on the desalination plant of Bajo Almanzora in Almería, Spain.
The alleged involvement of the man who is now Climate and Energy Commissioner
has moved several MEPs to ask the Commission to explain how it plans to act.
In his parliamentary question of 27 January 2016,
Green MEP Jordi Sebastià notes, “A witness has said that the Director-General
of Acuamed ordered preference to be given to FCC and indicated that these
orders came directly from Miguel Arias Cañete, the current Climate Action and
Energy Commissioner who was at that time the Spanish Agriculture Minister.”
Spanish media has extensively covered how according to
Eloy Velasco, the judge investigating the case, “top officials at the Ministry
agreed an illegal compensation to FCC” for €10 million for the desalination
plant and another €40 million for the decontamination of a dam.
This money was agreed as part of the costs to cover
flood damage occurred in 2012; El País reports that as Minister, Cañete ignored
reports that Acuamed should in fact not cover those costs. Instead, Cañete
discussed compensation with FCC at a meeting in February 2014 and ordered the
State Attorney to see if it would be legal to pay part of those costs.
Part of these payments were agreed, but according to
the judge, Acuamed ultimately refrained from paying the money to FCC once the
legal complaint which kickstarted the investigation was made public.
Furthermore, Acuamed had received EU funds from the
ERDF (European Fund for Regional Development) and the Cohesion Fund. The fact
that the company received EU funding prompted several MEPs and media to ask the
Commission whether the EU anti-fraud agency should investigate irregularities
in Acuamed's use of EU funding. For instance, MEP Marina Albiol Guzmán
(GUE/NGL) affirms in one parliamentary question to the Commission that, “since
2013 it [Acuamed] has been working on a project worth EUR1700 million, a large
proportion of which – 'around €1000 million' in 2013 alone, according to the
company itself – has been funded by the EU. The Spanish Anti-Corruption Office
(Fiscalía Anticorrupción) has discovered that over €20 million of the funding
allocated to the project has been siphoned off.”
The Commission referred to the EU funding of Acuamed
in a press briefing on 26 January 2016, explaining that it has informed the
European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) of the issue, making it possible for them to
consider opening an enquiry. They also mentioned that as it involves EC funds
there is a division of responsibility in terms of management and implementation
of the projects and that they are waiting for the correspondent information
from the Spanish authorities.
On 7 April, OLAF confirmed to Corporate Europe
Observatory that it has analysed the information received on the Acuamed case
and opened a coordination case. This means that OLAF will provide assistance to
investigations carried out by the Spanish judicial authorities. OLAF added that
its assistance is covered by judicial secrecy and that it would therefore make
no further comment about the case.
Environmental umbrella group Ecologistas en Acción has
already demanded the resignation of Cañete as Commissioner due to his
implication in the Acuamed scandal.
Green light for a controversial
uranium mine
On 21 May 2015 Commissioner Cañete signed a positive
opinion for Australian mining company Berkeley to set up a very controversial
open site uranium mine in Spain. Apart from the severe health and environmental
risks of uranium mining, the site is located in one of the Special Protected
Areas for Birds, part of the Natura 2000 network, under the protection of the
Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC….
To access the full story,
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario