The court of case of the ERE, chaired by Juan Antonio Calle Peña, sentenced in 2019 the bulk of the 21 former high charges for the crimes of prevarication and embezzlement. Among them were the two former presidents of the Junta de Andalucía, Manuel Chaves, with a sentence of 9 years of disqualification for a crime of prevarication, and José Antonio Griñán, with a sentence of six years in prison and another of 15 years of disqualification for the crimes of embezzlement and continued prevarication.
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In its argument, the court considered that Chaves was “fully aware” of the “illegality” of the system to pay the aid and its implementation, a decision of “great importance” that cannot be attributed solely to the person in charge of Employment or the Economy and Treasury. And all the budgetary modifications that derived from this lack of spending control also passed through the Governing Council, hence he is considered the author of a crime of prevarication.
In the case of Griñán, the Court refuted his defense that he did not know the details of what was happening. He considered that as Minister of the Treasury, he knew that the financing transfers were going to be used to pay subsidies, something that was mentioned in the budget reports themselves. “And being the Minister of Economy and Finance, he continued to make this inappropriate use of financing transfers in the different budget modifications that occurred”, increasing item 31-L from which the funds for aid came. A) Yes, Griñán was “fully aware of the obvious illegality” of these modifications, and assumed “the possibility that the funds linked to the 31L program were subject to disposal for purposes other than the public purpose for which they were intended.” He also reproached him for being “the recipient of the permanent financial control reports of public companies” and “he was aware of the deficiencies detected in them”, without stopping them.