The truth about corruption
A business report dispels myths about the amount of corruption in Catalonia compared with other places in Spain
Between 1983 and 2013, there were 535 cases of corruption, with only 41 in Catalonia
Spain is the EU country in which the public feels most affected by corruption
News about cases of political corruption are a daily occurrence in Spain these days. Catalonia, however, has so far largely managed to stay out of it. Unlike the rest of Spain, the number of corruption cases and the amounts involved are considerably lower here.
Nevertheless, there are some Spanish nationalists who have an interest in presenting Catalonia as a nest of corruption. Thus, the business association, the Cercle Català de Negocis (CCN), has decided to quantify the level of political corruption throughout the State, with concrete data about where and in which parties corruption is most commonly to be found.
The results of the CCN study paint a clear picture of corruption in Spain. Between 1983 and 2013, there were 535 cases of corruption, of which only 41 were in Catalonia. This places Catalonia in fifth position in the list of autonomous communities with the most cases of corruption. However, if the same cases are examined from the angle of millions of inhabitants, Catalonia comes out as the community in Spain with the least political corruption. And that includes the Jordi Pujol case, in which the former president is being investigated for allegations of tax fraud.
“We wanted to add the Pujol case to the list so that no one can accuse us of anything. We can see clearly that there have been cases of corruption in Catalonia, but Madrid is no position to give any lessons. We do not justify this malpractice, but by shining a light on it we hope to find ways of combating it,” says the author of the study, businessman, Ramir de Porrata-Dòria.
Some of the measures required to ensure that the country is more transparent and less corrupt are guaranteeing the separation of powers – a dubious situation in Spain – passing tougher anti-corruption legislation, speeding up the judicial process to prevent perpetrators escaping justice and putting more pressure on parties to prevent them covering up cases of corruption among their ranks, as is happening now: “There are a series of things that can be done, and having our own state would allow us to do them,” insists De Porrata-Dòria, who sees this point as another argument in favour of Catalan independence.
Businessmen affected
If the businessmen of CCN have taken the step of analysing corruption it is because the business world has a lot to lose. As De Porrata-Dòria says, honest business people cannot compete on the same level as those willing to take part in corrupt practices and, what's more, corruption raises production costs. In short, the association wants real information about the current situation, and what they have discovered does not reflect well on Spanish institutions.
The study reveals that Spain is the EU country in which the public feels most affected by corruption (63%), higher even than the likes of Romania (57%) or Slovenia (38%), and light years away from Germany (6%) or Denmark (3%). A European Commission report in February suggested that the public in Spain believe corruption is an ingrained practice in the country. Some 77% believe corrupt practices are an everyday part of Spain's business culture, while 67% believe the only way to ensure business success is through political contacts, and 87% think that corruption weakens competitiveness.
The data show that Spain is one of the countries most often linked with corruption in the international news. What's more, Transparency International, which investigates business and political corruption in the world, considers Spain the second highest country in which the perception of corruption is on the rise. Only Gambia, Mali and Libya are ranked higher.
To make matters worse, the idea that Spain does little to combat corruption is on the rise, something suggested by the low number of politicians serving sentences. The political parties with the most corruption cases in their ranks are, in order of most cases, PP, Coalición Canaria, PNB and PSOE.
Catalonia has 16% of the population of Spain, but only 7% of the total corruption cases. This coincides with data from Transparency International, which puts Catalonia among the three autonomous communities with the best level of transparency, alongside Castilla y León and the Basque Country.
Responding to press distortion
The CCN study highlights the distorted image of corruption in Catalonia presented by the Spanish media, when the country has some of the lowest levels of malpractice in Spain, in terms of inhabitants and the amounts defrauded. In fact, the most important case in Catalonia – the 45 million euros linked to the Pretòria case – is well under the 2.4 billion euros linked to the Malaia case of urban corruption in Marbella. According to the CCN report, corruption cases in Catalonia appeared 196 times on the front pages of the Spanish press between 2011 and 2013, while Valencia – with twice the number of cases per million inhabitants – appeared only 82 times in the same period.