Not everyone within Spain's Court of Accounts agrees with the latest moves in its persecution of pro-independence leaders. This becomes apparent from the public auditing body's report on the Catalan government's activities abroad between 2011 and 2017, as reported by the ACN, and to which ElNacional.cat has had access. The report has a dissenting opinion, presented by court councillor María Dolores Genaro Moya. Among other aspects, she denounces the urgency with which the audit institution wanted to approve the document, without giving room for comment. But most significantly: she questions the report’s own conclusions, assuring that the Generalitat of Catalonia did not exceed its functions and that the supervisory body has not done its job well. Up to 35 senior Catalan government officials have been cited as holding civil responsibility for public spending alleged to be illegal by a report which one of the body's own members finds biased and exaggerated.
In her opinion, Genaro recalls that the Court of Accounts is required to make "a strictly technical judgment based on the principles of legality, efficiency and economy of the economic and financial activity carried out by the Catalan government in relation to action abroad." Instead, she notes, the body has breached principles of "impartiality, clarity, conciseness, balance and weighting." She recalls that the analysis must be "objective and impartial" and "avoid value judgments and interpretations that are not sufficiently substantiated."
Thus, the Court of Accounts councillor - not a full court, and thus its members are not judges - states verbatim that “with the information given in the report, it does not appear that in these cases there is any overstepping in the action taken abroad by the Generalitat of Catalonia in relation to the scope of its competence”. She also denounces that in some cases "trips or activities are attributed an irregular nature as a result of statements made to the press after the event". This, according to the dissenting vote, "does not undermine their official character and their possible compatibility within the regional competencies."
To illustrate this point, María Dolores Genaro gives some examples: the trip of then-president Artur Mas to participate in the Second Meeting of European Liberal Democrat Leaders in Amsterdam, in February 2013, and that of president Carles Puigdemont to Copenhagen to open the Catalan government's delegation in the Nordic countries, in August 2017.
The dissenting opinion also challenges the references to activities "that seem to go beyond the scope of the Catalan government's foreign competence, but which, due to their duration, characteristics or other factors, appear as clearly accessory to a primary activity carried out, which was within the competency". An example of this type: Catalan foreign minister Raül Romeva's trip to Denmark and the United Kingdom in May 2016, "participating on one of the four days in an event whose subject matter was related to the independence process."
"The total number of activities included in the report that are considered to be covered by these two situations would be 64," said the Court of Accounts member.
"Inconclusive proof"
In addition to travel activities, the dissenting vote notes that there are other activities that are inferred as irregular "due to inconclusive evidence and therefore do not have adequate and sufficient proof." In this category, the councillor includes at least 28 activities “in which the evidence is obtained from a press release and not from the documentation that forms part of the expenditure files".
María Dolores Genaro also states at least 52 activities "which, although they are related to the scope of the independence process, constitute simple political or ideological statements and the expression of opinions, without any economic or accounting significance". Therefore, these should also fall outside the scope of the Court's audit.
"Attributed greater important than they really have"
The final conclusion made by the Court of Accounts member is devastating. "The constant reiterations in the results that are presented lead the reader to the impression that the relative importance of the matters included is much greater than it really is," says Genaro in the dissenting vote. Take the example of a trip made on January 24th, 2017 that is cited five times in the report and again in the conclusions.
In addition, in the first section of her individual report, the court member denounces the "incomprehensible urgency" with which the auditing body wanted to pass its report at the end of March 2019, despite her requests to extend the deadline in order to make technical observations. A violation of the procedure which had never been seen before, in her opinion.
35 people summonsed for June 29th
According to the Court of Accounts, a total of 35 people perpetrated the allegedly illegal foreign action, including former Catalan presidents Mas and Puigdemont and former vice president Oriol Junqueras. There are also many ex-ministers: Raül Romeva, Jordi Turull, Francesc Homs, Neus Munté and Andreu Mas Colell. They have all been called to appear on June 29th at 9:30am at the headquarters of the Court of Accounts in Madrid, and continuing the following day if necessary. The body demands that they hand over exorbitant amounts - the quantities corresponding to the allegedly illegal public spending they were responsible for.
As well, following a complaint issued by prosecutors last week, this report has led Barcelona Court 18 to open proceedings against the former Catalan foreign minister Raül Romeva and nine other senior officers in the Catalan government.