Barely a couple of weeks ago, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez opted out his country of NATO’s grand budget increase. He cited economic strain and social welfare priorities as the reason behind refusing to endorse the new spending benchmark.
In his defence, it wasn’t only Spain claiming that the dramatic increase would have wreaked havoc to the country’s budget as Slovakia and Denmark also joined the minor rebellion, along with Belgium and Canada.
It sounds less ‘positive’ though, if one considers that Denmark already spends more than 2 percent of its budget on defence, unlike Spain which is the worst spender of the alliance.
It sounds even worse when one looks at Sánchez’s track record and the scandals that have recently engulfed him and his Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) – a shocking display of incompetence, hypocrisy and ignorance.
The PSOE has been governing Spain since 2018.
Yet, the causes that gave birth to the Indignados movement (a series of grassroots protests that began on May 15, 2011, and eventually exposed the network of corruption inside Spain’s political landscape in 2018, leading to the resignation of the Rajoy Government, paving the way for Sánchez) hadn’t changed at all.
Unemployment is soaring, transparency and accountability are non-existent and economic inequality is worse than ever before. The housing crisis forces millions of Spanish young adults to live with their parents, being unable to pay rents. Sánchez failed to deliver the reforms he promised.
While the average Spaniard is struggling, the Socialist Workers’ Party got embroiled in one scandal after the other.
A notable example is the ERE scandal in Andalusia: under the PSOE’s guarding eyes, €680 million (other estimates put the damage at 1 billion) in public funds got misappropriated. Lining the pockets of leading Socialist politicians instead of financing social housing units.
Leaving Spanish voters disillusioned with the system that serves only those on the top.
The latest news involves Sánchez’s former right-hand man, Santos Cerdán.
Cerdán, previously the third most senior member of the prime minister’s party, is currently in custody. Allegations against him include corruption, forming a criminal organization and bribery.
To make matters worse, Cerdán apparently worked together with former transport minister José Luis Ábalos and the latter’s former aide Koldo García (now dubbed together as a ‘toxic triangle’).
The three accused and other, so far unnamed ‘third parties’, obtained ‘financial rewards for the illicit awarding of public works contracts’, for example to construction company Acciona. The company supposedly paid €620,000 in bribes and promised another €450,000.
Another company was Servinabar, also suspected of participating in ‘suspicious’ public procurements and illegally transferring 45 percent of its shares to Cerdán in 2016 in exchange for a meagre €6,000.
As an ironic twist in Spain’s never ending corruption dramas, Santos Cerdán is held in custody in the same prison that ‘hosts’ Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer