Letter to the European Commission The president of the Control Commission of the European Parliament urges to find out if the plot of 'Tito Berni' achieved EU funds

The president of the Control Commission of the European Parliament, Monika Hohlmeier, asks the European Commission in writing to investigate and inform her about whether the so-called 'Meditor case' affects European funds and what follow-up it will do

Letter to the European Commission The president of the Control Commission of the European Parliament urges to find out if the plot of 'Tito Berni' achieved EU funds

The president of the Control Commission of the European Parliament, Monika Hohlmeier, asks the European Commission in writing to investigate and inform her about whether the so-called 'Meditor case' affects European funds and what follow-up it will do.

In a letter to which ELMUNDO has had access, the German MEP expresses her "concern" about "the execution of certain projects in the Canary Islands where European funds and more specifically funds from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (MRR) could be at stake." ». It is about the plot in which the names of the former socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, better known by now as Tito Berni, his nephew Taishet Fuentes -former general director of Livestock of the Canary Islands- and also the General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa stand out. .

The parliamentary commission chaired by Hohlmeier has the powers to evaluate the European Commission's management of the funds and its written requests bind the Community Executive, which must respond.

The letter is addressed to the European commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Paolo Gentiloni who are responsible in the European Commission for the proper use of European funds. The Bavarian MEP from the European People's Party does not have her own data on the case and she limits herself to transferring information from the Spanish press to the commissioners, but she tries to activate them in the case and wants follow-up. "Allow me in return to ask you to inform the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament on whether there are Community funds, in particular those of the MRR and to what extent. Also what follow-up plans to do the European Commission of the case », she writes to them.

Hohlmeier also wants Dombrovskis and Gentiloni to keep the parliamentary committee he chairs informed about their inquiries. "We would like to invite the European Commission to report on this matter to the committee on budgetary control in due course," she remarks.

The MEP assures that she writes to them - the letter is dated on the 8th - "after the very successful mission in Madrid." She led the delegation and, at the end, declared to this newspaper that she had compiled information to conclude that there is a lack of transparency and co-governance in the management of funds in Spain and that she left "concerned" about the reduction in the crime of embezzlement promoted by the coalition government at a time when it expects to receive an unprecedented amount of European funds of more than 160,000 million euros.

Hohlmeier has transferred this concern to an amendment to which this newspaper has also had access. It is the one that she herself introduces in the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control in order to approve the management of the European Commission with European funds. In it she wants to approve "the request to the Commission to ensure that Member States apply a zero tolerance approach to corruption, including embezzlement without exception."

If it prospers in the European Parliament, it will imply that the European Commission cannot accept exceptions in the crime of embezzlement that do not penalize the diversion of public funds when the author does not profit himself. This is the case of the new Spanish Penal Code, as criticized by the Supreme Court.

Hohlmeier wants the European Parliament to support the fact that all embezzlement is considered a crime without exceptions such as the one agreed by the PSOE with Esquerra Republicana.

Sources from the parliamentary committee point out that it has not been possible to reach an agreement with the Spanish socialist MEPs on this amendment, so it will be voted on next week for its inclusion in the so-called discharge report in which the European Parliament evaluates and gives indications to the European Commission after reviewing its performance with the funds.

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