Spain has not fully implemented any of the 19 anti-corruption measures recommended by the European anti-corruption body, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), according to a report from the body.
GRECO released a report on Tuesday noting that while Spain had partially implemented seven recommendations, 12 of the recommendations from the body have not been implemented at all, including transparency issues over government advisors.
The recommendations from GRECO were made in June of 2019 and involved two areas, with ten being related to the activities of senior government officials and nine toward members of Spain’s security services, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports.
“In view of the above, GRECO concludes that Spain has not satisfactorily complied with or satisfactorily addressed any of the 19 recommendations contained in the evaluation report. Of the recommendations, seven have been partially implemented and 12 have not been implemented,” the body said this week.
Very little has been done on the issue of lobbying as recommended by GRECO either, which included recommendations for more transparency of meetings between lobbyists and officials, such s identifying those participating in meetings along with topics being discussed.
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Some progress has been made, according got the body, on senior officials being more transparent about their finances but requested more detail on the data provided as well and the speed in which officials were providing it.
The Spanish government claimed that it had difficulty implementing the recommendations as it would require constitutional reform and a broad consensus among Spain’s political parties.
On the topic of the Spanish security forces, GRECO noted that there has been improvements in the “ethnical infrastructure” of the Civil Guard along with “gender equality” but noted other recommendations have not been implemented.
Corruption remains a problem in Spain, with the new GRECO report coming just months after the start of the trial for former police chief Jose Manuel Villarejo, who was accused of recording conversations with influential businesspeople in order to blackmail them or harm their reputations.
Earlier this year, Villarejo stated that the Spanish secret service was involved and may have organised the 2017 Barcelona terrorist attacks, claiming that they were done ahead of the Catalan independence referendum to scare the public.
Corruption allegations were at the heart of infighting within the centre-right People’s Party earlier this year after leader Pablo Casado accused regional Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso of being linked to corruption relating to the business activities of her brother who had earned €1.5 million (£1,252,119/$1,696,065) of regional government cash for the purchases of facemasks.
Ayuso accused Casado of hiring private detectives to discredit her and the backlash from within the party led Casado to agree to call an extraordinary party congress where a new leader is expected to be chosen by the party membership.
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