Why the case of the ERE is a case of corruption: the Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court deny the supporters of Griñán

• Conviction The Prosecutor's Office asks that Griñán and eight other former high-ranking socialist officials of the Board be imprisoned for the 'ERE case'

• Resources The Supreme confirms the conviction of Chaves and the imprisonment of Griñán for the ERE case

The arbitrary and uncontrolled distribution of the 679 million euros in public funds, with which early retirements were illegally financed and aid given to companies supposedly in crisis is a case of corruption.

Faced with the doubts and

that question the corrupt nature of the actions that resulted in the ERE case, the Supreme Court, first, and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, later, have reached the same conclusion and with the same forcefulness: it is book corruption.

That José Antonio Griñán -and the rest of the convicts-

at the expense of the public resources of the Board that were irregularly diverted does not mean that it is not a case of corruption.

It is, point out the Supreme Court and the Public Ministry, dismantling the attempts of those who defend that, especially in the case of Griñán, the only thing that can be accused of is excessive confidence and, if anything, lack of zeal in the control of the machinery of the Board.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has been the last one that has come to clear the

that, many times on purpose, have spread about the nature of the criminal action of the former Andalusian president, in particular, and of all those convicted in general in the so-called specific procedure, which starred in the first trial of the ERE.

The Prosecutor's Office insists on speaking of "corruption" - to which it puts the

- in the letter by which this week it has asked the Provincial Court of Seville for the immediate imprisonment of both José Antonio Griñán and the others sentenced to prison sentences: former directors José Antonio Viera, Juan Márquez, Antonio Fernández, Francisco Vallejo and Carmen Martínez Aguayo, in addition to former senior officials Jesús María Rodríguez Román and Agustín Barberá.

In that letter, in which it rejects the requests of the defense lawyers to suspend the

-all have requested a pardon from the Government-, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office endorses the Supreme Court's thesis and insists that "we are facing a form of political corruption".

Specifically, the High Court, in the ruling by which it confirmed the convictions of the Seville Court, maintains that those convicted, with former presidents Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán at the head, allowed and promoted the system by which financed the aid to "dispose of public funds as if they were their own" and this, added the Supreme Court in a resolution of more than

, "is one more form of political corruption and not [...] a way of giving protection workers affected by restructuring processes or business crises", as maintained by the defenses.

It is not necessary, the magistrates added, to prove that they acted motivated by the objective of enriching themselves or financing their political party to talk about corruption.

Likewise, the Prosecutor's Office reproduces another paragraph of the equally devastating sentence: «Political and administrative corruption and the misuse of power are incompatible with a

, in which principles such as equality before the law, control of the public power, impartiality and correctness in administrative action.

Everything that shone by the absence of him in the ERE.

The thesis on corruption defended by both the Supreme Court and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office can not only complicate Griñán and the rest of those sentenced to prison an eventual

pending a hypothetical pardon.

Furthermore, the emphasis that corruption did exist is a stone on the road to this measure of grace, since it makes any justification difficult.

To all of the above, we must add that it is an

those who have supported with their signature the granting of a pardon that Griñán's family has already presented to the Ministry of Justice for processing and discussion within the Council of Ministers.

More than 4,000 signatures

In the long list of support for the measure of grace there are personalities from culture, communication and, also, from politics and, among the latter,

public officials of the PSOE whom the forcefulness of the Public Ministry and the Supreme leave without arguments and, even more serious, before the evidence of a breach of the Code of Ethics of his own party.

The most prominent cases are those of the senator (and former president) Susana Díaz and that of the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, José Borrell.

Both have stamped their signature supporting Griñán's pardon petition with the argument that his crime is not corruption and, therefore, does not fall within the assumptions in which the PSOE's

prohibit such an initiative.

In its

, the Code of Ethics of the Socialist Party approved in 2014 states that "PSOE public officials undertake not to propose or support the pardon of public officials convicted of crimes linked to corruption."

However, the former president has not felt bound by her party's mandate and has even stated that "misappropriation as such does not mean political corruption."

Exactly the opposite is what both the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor's Office have said.

Díaz has gone even further by pointing out that Griñán "has not embezzled because he has not been able to dispose of the funds", which is a

the Supreme Court and the Seville Court, not to mention the judges who have participated in the investigation of the case and of the prosecutors.

At the same time, it is an endorsement of the position that

have maintained , such as the Andalusian general secretary, Juan Espadas, or the mayor of Seville, Antonio Muñoz, who did feel appealed by the Code of Ethics and refused to sign in favor pardon the former president.

The PP joins the Prosecutor's Office and will request immediate entry into prison

The PP-A will adhere to the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in its request to the Provincial Court of Seville to execute the six-year prison sentence for embezzlement and prevarication imposed on the former president of the Junta de Andalucía José Antonio Griñán by the ERE case, which would imply his imprisonment.

This was announced this Saturday in Cabra (Córdoba), its general secretary and regional deputy for Córdoba, Antonio Repullo, who has assured that "we are going to go hand in hand with the Prosecutor's Office as always in this procedure", as reported by the PP in a statement.

This is so, he stressed, "because neither Chaves nor Griñán are innocent, as shown by two sentences that blame those people who had a set up with the ERE and who worked against employment in Andalusia."

For Repullo, "the fact that they enter prison or not will be determined by the judges and the jurisprudential line of the Constitutional Court, which has already said that the sentence must be fulfilled regardless of whether they request a pardon."

In the act of presentation of the PP candidate for the next municipal elections in Cabra, the current mayor and senator Fernando Priego, the popular leader has said that his party is going to act "as in the beginning, when colleagues from our formation began an important work to denounce the important excesses of the PSOE and the socialists insulted them".

In his opinion, "now it has been shown with two convictions that he had a big racket set up in Andalusia to go doped to the elections."

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• PSOE

• Jose Antonio Grinan

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• John Swords

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• Manuel Chavez

• ERE case