A judgment issued by the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid endorses that the Marbella City Council requests state subsidies for public transport and has resolved to recognize it “the right to participate in the procedure for the subsidy of the collective transport service for the year 2019”.

The court ruling, issued on January 26, 2022 and to which this newspaper has had access, responds to the appeal filed by the local Administration against the resolution of the General Secretariat of regional and local financing of the Ministry of Finance, of December 3, 2019, which “agrees to deny the City Council the concurrence to the subsidy established in article 119 of Law 6/2018, of 3 of July, of the General State Budget for the year 2018 (extended for 2019), for not providing the required documentation essential to be able to be a beneficiary”.

Also, in the application they include codefendants the municipalities of Granada, Huelva, La Línea de la Concepción, Murcia and Torrelavega, that “they had extra financing at the expense of Marbella”, the mayor of the city, Ángeles Muñoz, replied at a press conference, accompanied by the Councilor for the Treasury, Félix Romero, who has criticized that “They leave us out with a false approach.”

The conflict derives from the decision of the Government of the Nation of suspend the installment of the debt that the Marbella Town Hall maintains with the Social Security and the Treasury, generated by the governments of the Grupo Independiente Liberal (GIL); which was appealed by the local Administration in 2018 before the National Court (AN). In a first instance, the AN has ruled in favor of the City Council, a resolution that has been appealed to the Supreme Court.

In this way, the refusal to the City Council to attend the subsidy of the collective transport service of the year 2019 dictated by the General Secretariat of regional and local financing of the Ministry of Finance, becomes “by Failure to provide the essential required documentation in order to be a beneficiary of a subsidy as established in the Subsidy Law and its Regulations” and that links to the suspension of the aforementioned debt installment.

The mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz, lamented the “harassment and demolition” of the central government “in his attempt to make money with the residents of Marbella and suffocate our city economically”, recalling that “he decided unilaterally and absolutely unjustifiably break the division of the payment of the debt inherited from the GIL with Social Security and the Treasury, which this City Council achieved with the previous central Executive, since its intention was to keep that money instead of returning it to the municipality”.

In this sense, he has indicated that the Consistory has achieved enter 37 million euros in cash coming from firm judicial sentences for cases of corruption, assessing that “from that moment on, the Ministry of Treasury issues a negative certificate in which it says that the City Council is a debtor, so they prevent the city of Marbella from being eligible for state subsidies.

Regarding the aid for public transport requested from the Ministry, Muñoz explained that the City Council requested a grant of 210,000 euros in 2019 that it was not granted by the State “alleging that we were not up to date with our quotas”, emphasizing that in the sentence issued the Madrid TSJ “understands that it acted without taking into account objective criteria, such as the fact that this city maintains its fractionation in force and is up to date with payments with Social Security and the Treasury.

This statement has been made based on the “precautionary measure of suspension decreed by the AN, relating to the legal dispute over the annulment of the division of the inherited debt, which “endorses the City Council” and “absolutely suspends the criteria held by the Ministry of Finance and the Government”, with which “the postponement is in effect to the end of all possible resources.”

On the other hand, the councilor has pointed out that the Consistory requested transport aid in the years 2020 and 2021, which were also denied, for which it has advanced that “we are going to ask the state for a million euros that we have stopped receiving between the three, and that in the case of last year it amounted to 600,000 euros by increasing the kilometers of route, the number of passengers and to improve the fleet”.

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