Montoro Indicted in Tarragona for Favoring Gas Companies

Montoro Indicted in Tarragona for Favoring Gas Companies

The judge in charge of Investigation Court No. 2 in Tarragona, Rubén Rus, has indicted former finance minister Cristóbal Montoro for allegedly abusing his position to approve laws benefiting specific companies. The case, which has been kept under seal for seven years, reaches the courts with a trail of emails, extensions, and cross-accusations. The news has dropped like a bomb in a political ecosystem where every indictment is measured with a double standard.

What is attributed to him and why the seven-year secrecy complicates everything

The indictment rests on the alleged use of his office to approve regulations favorable to gas companies. According to published reports, Montoro received more than 100 emails with confidential data from the Tax Agency, although the judge does not see a crime in that specific exchange. The investigation has been under seal for seven years, an anomaly that, according to legal sources, could invalidate everything done. Some argue that such a prolonged secrecy is "unheard of" and that the case could end up being a washout.

The case is further entangled with the purchase of shell companies by a businessman linked to the Gürtel and Aldama scandal, and with payments from the Galician government to Montoro’s consultancy under investigation. The electricity grid also appears in the file: links with the former minister’s team are being investigated, allegedly maintained even with Sánchez in Moncloa. Each new thread adds layers to a story the defense may try to deactivate through procedural means before reaching the merits.

The double standard as a framework: all are equal, but some more than others

The political reaction has been almost automatic. One part of the analysis holds that Montoro’s indictment is good news for VOX, because anything that weakens the PP benefits the right wing that presents itself as a clean alternative. Another current points out that the PSOE tries to divert attention from its own judicial fronts — Sánchez’s brother, the ERE cases, the email scandal — by opening cases from years ago in peripheral courts. And a third, the most uncomfortable, points out that the problem is not a party but a system: the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, and the Central Operational Unit (UCO) as pieces of a gear train that rarely ends in prison for those at the top.

The most cynical calculation sums up an idea circulating: if you have to choose between corrupt people, better mine. That phrase, which in the end deactivates any demand for accountability, is the true hole in the debate. Because while the discussion centers on who steals more, the practical result is the same: impunity and extensions.

The 70 extensions and the risk of everything expiring

One of the data points that most worries jurists is the number of investigation extensions: up to 70. This accumulation of extensions has led more than one analyst to think that part of the facts may have expired. The judge himself has had to deal with the paradox of keeping a former minister indicted while the judicial calendar plays in favor of oblivion. The case, in practice, faces two possible endings: either annulled due to irregular secrecy, or closed due to expiration. In both cases, the message that sinks in is that justice arrives late and poorly.

What remains of the case and what the PP plays

Beyond the noise, the Montoro case touches a sensitive nerve: the relationship between the Treasury and regulated companies. A minister who approves laws benefiting specific sectors while maintaining ties to consultancies advising those same companies is a textbook conflict of interest. The defense will argue there is no crime, and they may be right on the penal level. But the political damage is already done, and the PP knows it.

The question hovering over the file is not whether Montoro ends up convicted, but whether the system is designed so that no one ever ends up convicted. With 70 extensions, seven years of secrecy, and a UCO that sometimes seems to go its own way, the answer does not invite optimism. The case remains open. And that, in itself, is already a fact.