• Judgment of the ERE. Six years in jail for Griñán and nine years of disqualification for Chaves
  • Judgment of 'Gürtel'. The National Court condemns Barcenas to 33 years for money laundering and the PP for benefiting from Gürtel
  • 'Case ERE'.Who is who
  • 'Case Gúrtel'. Who is who

The case of the EREs and the Gürtel case have a common denominator: these are the criminal causes of corruption that have caused more political damage to the PSOE and the Popular Party. Entering to examine some factors, other similarities arise, but also differences.

Subject matter

The common point is that in both cases political, popular and socialist leaders were involved. But there are also clear differences. In Gürtel , the criminal initiative was based on private entrepreneurs - Francisco Correa and company - who agreed with positions of the PP to enrich each other personally. In this case, the payment of electoral expenses by the corrupt plot also emerged, which caused the party itself to be convicted as civil responsible for these amounts.

On the contrary, the criminal action of the ERE was an initiative of high socialist public positions in Andalusia. The party as such has not gone to the bench - the PP did have to take a representative to trial - and neither Manuel Chaves, nor José Antonio Griñán nor the rest of the bench were enriched with public money.

But, as the sentence emphasizes, many companies that received public funds did so without needing it. Funds that, in addition, did not go to whoever needed them. There are no direct electoral expenses in the ERE, but the final objective of the plot was to use public money to buy a social peace that facilitated the permanence of socialist positions in power.

Crimes committed

Qualitatively, in both cases they were cases of "corruption", according to the crimes that the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) officially considers as such. But quantitatively there are differences. In the ERE, only two crimes were handled: prevarication and embezzlement, in both cases on an ongoing basis. On the contrary, the list of precepts of the Criminal Code infringed by the principal convicted of the Gürtel case seems like an apothecary: prevarication, influence peddling, public administration fraud, bribery, documentary falsification, embezzlement, tax fraud, money laundering and association unlawful

Economic impact

Here the ERE sweeps, although it depends on the calculation criteria. The judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia amounts to 679,432,179.09 million euros fraudulent aid of the ERE. But one thing is that it was poorly managed and another that went to who should not. A good part deserved to go where it went, but by other channels. In the Gürtel case, the corrupt prosecuted operations were around 20 million euros, although among the pieces that are still to be judged is the biggest shot in the plot, a 50 million real estate operation.

Penalties imposed

In the Gürtel case, 29 of the 37 defendants were convicted. The prison sentences totaled a total of 351 years in jail. Correa was 51 and Luis Bárcenas, 33. In the ERE, with 19 convicted over 21 courts, the figures are more modest and more than half of the sentences are only disqualification. Even so, they add 68 years in prison.

Judicial future

None of the sentences are firm. That means that, on paper, it is still possible that everything is nothing. But it is extremely unlikely. The Gürtel case , sentenced in May 2018, is still pending a final ruling by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. As for the ERE, the notification of the judgment of the Supreme Court opens the deadline for the parties to announce to the Andalusian court in the coming days whether or not they will present appeals before the Supreme Court.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Gürtel case
  • ERE case
  • Madrid
  • Andalusia
  • PP
  • PSOE
  • Manuel Chaves
  • José Antonio Griñán
  • José Luis Olivas
  • National audience
  • Justice
  • Corruption

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