The PP has summoned for this Thursday the former executive director of Globalia, Javier Hidalgo, and the former head of the group's legal department, Ramiro Campos, to appear before the investigation commission of the Spanish Company of Industrial Holdings (SEPI) in the Senate, focused on the rescue of Air Europa during the pandemic.
PP sources frame these summons after Judge Juan Carlos Peinado has decided to prosecute Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for alleged crimes of influence peddling, business corruption, embezzlement, and misappropriation, finally discarding professional intrusion, which was also being investigated.
The magistrate has given a period of five days to the parties involved so that they "request what they deem appropriate regarding the opening of the oral trial, formulating the corresponding provisional conclusions brief".
In the PP they maintain that the four crimes attributed to Begoña Gómez are linked "to the exchange of favors with Air Europa". In the opinion of the 'popular' ones, the Executive approved the rescue of this airline "and in exchange its subsidiaries financed Begoña Gómez's businesses". "La Moncloa turned into a headquarters for private businesses", they have criticized, also pointing to SEPI as the "link" that served "to pay political favors".
In this scenario, the current PSOE candidate in the Andalusian elections and former Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, will appear this Monday (11:00 AM) before the Senate commission to offer explanations about, according to the PP, "how SEPI became the operations center of Sanchista corruption". Javier Hidalgo will have to appear on Thursday at 11:30 AM and Ramiro Campos will do so the same day at 4:30 PM.
Hidalgo already rejected a preferential deal for Air Europa
The former CEO of Globalia already defended in the Senate's 'Koldo case' commission that Air Europa did not receive preferential treatment in the public support granted during the health crisis, emphasizing that the injection of 475 million euros approved by the Government was "the worst loan", "with the strictest and most unfavorable conditions of those granted in Europe".
Hidalgo also assured that it is "false" that he met with Pedro Sánchez and that his only contact with the President of the Government was limited to an event where they coincided with 25 other businessmen.
The former CEO of Globalia will also have to testify this Tuesday as a witness before the Supreme Court in the trial against the former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos, his former advisor Koldo García, and the commissioner Víctor de Aldama, for the alleged irregularities in the acquisition of masks during the pandemic.
Throughout the next week, the court will hear testimony from the former PSOE treasurer Mariano Moreno, from the former chiefs of staff of former ministers Carlos Moreno and Ricardo Mar, as well as from Javier Hidalgo himself, who, according to the testimony of Leonor González, the daughter of the businesswoman who claims to have delivered 90,000 euros to the federal headquarters of the PSOE on Ferraz street in Madrid, would have handed over 500,000 euros to Koldo and Aldama.