The Cabildo has had to authorize the payment of 50,471 euros to the State Attorney to comply with another ruling that former president, Pedro San Ginés, had kept hidden, and in which the institution was ordered to pay the costs generated by this procedure. The lawsuit was initiated at the request of the former Minister of Tourism Centers, José Juan Lorenzo, after the project presented by the Cabildo was excluded from the "Smart Islands" call, promoted by the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda through Red.es.
The proposal presented by the previous government group, for which they claimed a subsidy of almost 8 million euros, was rejected for failing to comply with the terms of the call, since the budget included "recurring expenses" that could not be subsidized. Then they filed a first appeal with this body, which did not prosper, and then Lorenzo sent a letter to San Ginés asking to go to court. He even pointed out in that letter the lawyer who should take the case, Ramón Olarte López-Viota, and pointed out that the Centers would cover his fees. Now, to that payment that was made to the lawyer, we must add the expense of more than 50,000 euros that the Cabildo has had to assume by paying the costs of the other party, after having lost the lawsuit.
The ruling, issued in December 2018 by the Central Court for Contentious Administrative Matters Number 3 of the National Court, harshly questions the "contradictions" in which the institution incurred in its appeal and also the "disproportionality" of the arguments it used, since it even accused the Ministry of having "falsified" the minutes of a meeting to which they were summoned to clarify their project. When that appeal was admitted for processing in 2017, the Cabildo did send a statement reporting it and celebrating that this opened "a door for justice to be done." However, when the devastating ruling arrived a year and a half later, which also ordered it to pay the costs, it kept it hidden.
Responses "confusing when not easily intelligible"
"It is not that the administration has falsified the statements of the participants, but that the participants never expressed with sufficient clarity, neither for the administration, nor now for those who examine the videographic documentation, that there were effectively no recurring expenses in any way and the exact sustainability or continuity of the project," states the ruling to which La Voz has now had access, in reference to the reason that led to the rejection of the project presented by the Cabildo.
"The request from the local entity was never sufficiently clear," concludes the Central Court, which recalls that Red.es had to ask the representatives of the Cabildo for clarifications when it summoned them to that meeting. In its lawsuit, what the institution maintained is that the transcription of the meeting was "false" and that it reflected "a position opposite to the one actually expressed by the participants." However, after watching that recording, the Court concludes that the people who represented the Cabildo "incurred" in "confusing responses when not easily intelligible". Therefore, it considers it legitimate that the minutes reflected "a reasonable interpretation of what the request and the clarifications of the participants in that meeting meant."
Image of the Lanzarote delegation when they went to Madrid to present the project.
Regarding the alleged "falsehoods" in the minutes of the meeting, the ruling questions that the Cabildo raised it in its lawsuit but that it had not resorted to criminal proceedings. "This is a serious accusation made insistently in the writing of the lawsuit and in the final conclusions to the behavior of a public body," it underlines in this regard, pointing out that affirming that they falsified a public document to "harm them" implies imputing a crime to both the president and the secretary of the commission who signed the minutes, without it being recorded that the Cabildo has "filed any criminal action" to determine responsibilities.
The ruling quotes the RAE: "The definition of recurring is clear"
The other axis on which the Cabildo based its appeal focused on questioning that the Ministry had "used a concept of recurring expense that it never correctly defined, failing to comply with the legality of the subsidy." In this regard, the ruling points out that "the definition" of what is "recurring" is "sufficiently clear." Even, the ruling reproduces the one contemplated by the Royal Spanish Academy of the language, which indicates that recurring is something that "happens or appears again."
In this case, Red.es pointed out that the Cabildo had included in its project the expenses of hiring external platforms for five years, through private companies. This, according to the evaluation of the Ministry, was far from the objectives of this call, since the bases allowed including any type of expense linked to the purchase of computer equipment and technological tools, but not to external contracting as a 'rental', since among other things that did not guarantee the sustainability and future viability of the project.
Although the Island Corporation later tried to deny this extreme, the ruling agrees with the evaluation committee and also underlines the "indefinition" in which its request incurred. "The terminology is unnecessarily sprinkled with Anglicisms and technical expressions, which are not always univocal in their understanding either in the original language or in Spanish, in ambiguities that are projected on the substance or nature of the activities truly to be carried out in the field of the subsidized activity", adds the ruling.
The Cabildo's own expert recognized that there were recurring expenses
In addition, the Court highlights that with its own appeal, the Cabildo confirmed that it understood what this concept implied. "The plaintiff seems to have perfectly understood what recurring expenses or recurring costs are, since it is denying that it incurs in them categorically, although it later incurs in contradictions," underlines the Central Court, which after analyzing the case concludes that those expenses constituted "an essential part of the project."
Regarding the contradictions of the Cabildo, it points out that the expert provided by its defense "recognizes recurring expenses that amount to 540,174 euros out of 7,720,874 euros, that is, approximately 7% of the total budget." "Therefore, in whole or in part, according to this interpretation of the party's own expert, the request did truly incur in recurring expenses, which could in no way be considered for the purposes of granting the subsidy," it concludes.
Thus, in addition to rejecting the Cabildo's appeal in its entirety, the National Court ordered it to pay the expenses generated to the other party. Initially, the State Attorney claimed more than 100,000 euros, so those costs could have been almost double. However, in this case, a subsequent appeal did prosper and the Court has reduced that amount to 50,471 euros, which is what the Corporation has finally had to pay now.
Beyond the reason that led to the exclusion of Lanzarote from this call for subsidies, the Cabildo's proposal was also among the worst positioned of all the applicants. Specifically, it was in eighth place among ten proposals, with a score of only 5.5. However, the Corporation continued to defend the project. "Great tycoons of technology and tourism told us that we had a good project, that it was one of the most innovative and we continue to believe that it is one of the best projects that were presented," said then the Minister of Tourism, Echedey Eugenio, who assured that it was "valued by IBM, by Telefónica and by large companies that are dedicated to this and know the projects, as one of the best, because they understood that it was the most innovative, the most innovative."
