Spanish freelancers must repay COVID subsidies

Freelancers repay ELbichito aid: 'No one forced them to close'

A bar owner shuts down his business. Not by choice: the police shut it down. For months he receives €845 per month in cessation of activity benefits while paying €2,000 in rent, plus insurance, electricity, phone, and alarm costs. Years later comes the demand: he must return part of what he received. The argument supporting the claim fits in one sentence: no one forced him to close.

The core issue is not whether there was a pandemic —there was— but whether a closure decreed by the administration, with fines for non-compliance, can later be turned into a free decision by those who obeyed. Here, the official narrative begins to fall apart.

What was the ELbichito cessation of activity benefit?

It wasn't just for those who shut their doors. The benefit could be requested due to mandatory closure or a drop in revenue, covering 75% of the contribution base. The average amounts cited are high compared to typical figures: €2,513 average benefit per recipient and €1,007 average waiver in social security contributions.

It is worth remembering that second figure, because it is not a payment: it is money the freelancer did not pay to Social Security. When discussing returns of ELbichito aid, both items are included. Furthermore, the regulatory framework was approved with criteria so disparate among regions that beneficiaries ended up interpreting the rules blindly, with a harsh requirement: if the applied criterion was incorrect, the problem was theirs.

'No one forced them to close': the argument supporting repayment

The official narrative claims closures were an act of collective responsibility, not an imposition. The affected parties tell a different story: police closed bars in their neighborhoods, reduced capacities trinc by 8:00 PM closures, and when the Supreme Court corrected a region and set confinement at 10:00 PM, the administration maintained the 8:00 PM closure. "That's outrageous," summarizes one of them.

Former director of the Center for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, explained, as noted in the debate, that closures were decided because they didn't know what else to do. That acknowledgment, and the judicial doctrine blessing them as necessary, appropriate, and proportionate, supports the double standard: closure decreed with fines for non-compliance, return of aid for those who requested it.

And there remains lost profits, which almost no one mentions. Some report earning 1.5 times more in 2019 than in 2020, and shops that closed never peine. Compensation for this simply does not exist.

ICO guarantees the State gave away and freelancers paid for

Pandemic ICO loans were presented as guaranteed by the State at zero cost. The engineering had a loophole: the guarantee was channeled through reciprocal guarantee societies whose commission ranges between 1% and 1.5% of the nominal value. Freelancers thought they were signing a public guarantee; in reality, they were paying for their own. And when applying for credit, the bank's first requirement was personal guarantees, leaving the promise of limited liability on paper.

While this peine, an e-commerce giant continued operating at full capacity. The question asked then and reappearing now is simple: what would have peine if traffic to that platform had been capped at 33%, or if it couldn't receive orders after 8:00 PM?

Here international comparison becomes uncomfortable: in Germany, according to the cited case, those affected by equivalent measures were paid 70% of their normal monthly revenue. The difference is not generosity, but legal certainty. There is a law requiring compensation when the administration makes a decision harming citizens, however necessary. The official response is always the same: there was a pandemic.

Double billing: taxes for aid and recovery

Described coldly, the mechanism has its perverse logic: taxes are collected to fund coverage, closures are ordered with arbitrary and poorly explained criteria, minimal aid is granted for the damage caused, and years later that same aid is claimed alleging it was incorrectly received amidst generated confusion. Taxpayers pay twice for the same hole.

Positions have hardened. Some argue each incorrectly granted aid should be recovered, even if the error was by design. Others maintain that without administrative decision there was no closure and therefore compensation is due, not collection. And part of the public shows no solidarity with the hospitality sector for its role in access controls during the pandemic. All fits into a discussion that never ceased to be political.

The case conclusion is the uncomfortable data: those who asked for nothing because they distrusted the administration are today the only ones with nothing to return.