AVAF Dialogues on this occasion has Magistrate Joaquim Bosch as a guest, who spoke with the director of the Agency, Joan Llinares, about his book “La patria en la cartera”.
You can also listen to it on our channels:
Spotify ➡️ https://open.spotify.com/episode/4T006ZKWr1cUidqkzixdNO
ivoox ➡️ https://www.ivoox.com/dialogos-joaquim-bosch-audios-mp3_rf_83340771_1.html
#TrainingAVAF
The last session of the course “Prevention of corruption in public management”, prepared by the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, in collaboration with the University of Valencia, was given by Anselm Bodoque, head of the AVAF Training Service.
“The cost of corruption and public policies against corruption in Europe and Spain”, the title of the presentation, made it possible to share reflections on the various aspects of the negative effects of fraud and the general interest.
Excessive public spending, the reduction of public investment in essential services, the exclusion of innovative and honest companies or permissiveness in the face of tax fraud were some of the negative effects that were exposed in the session on corruption in public management on the 9 March 2022.
During the conference, it was stressed that fraud also implies economic and reputational costs for society, for public management, the legitimacy of institutions and collective well-being.
The second part of the conference focused on the study of the configuration process of public policies against corruption in Europe, Spain, and the Valencian Community.
The temporal origin can be placed around 1990, in the context of the III Industrial and Technological Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall and globalization. The OECD, the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN are the first international organizations that promote conventions, agreements or organizations to combat corruption.
The beginning of public policies on corruption at the international and European levels put the accent on the fight against organized crime, political corruption, and the legal and police persecution of the corrupt. In the session, it was insisted on the fact that Spain does not have a general strategy to prevent and fight against corruption, such as the one that has been developed in the Valencian Community since 2015, which has incorporated initiatives aimed at improving institutional quality.
The session highlighted that it is precisely on improving the general institutional quality that initiatives should be concentrated to reduce our level of corruption and place it at the levels of the most advanced countries in Europe. In fact, countries with lower rates of corruption base their position on having a strong, democratic and socially legitimate institutional system and allocate fewer resources to the legal, regulatory and police prosecution of corruption.
Throughout five weeks, the managers of the PAS staff of the University of Valencia have actively participated in the sessions where the existence of the institutional system of integrity in our country, the necessary integrity plans in public organizations, the phases of the anti-fraud cycle of Order 1030/2021 of September 29, as well as the costs of corruption in the public sphere.
Along with the lectures given, the attendees were the protagonists of a practical session where they had the opportunity to reflect on the protection of corruption whistleblowers, the necessary implementation of internal and external reporting channels, the importance of informal alerts, and the strategic vision of planning as a tool to combat irregularities and risks known to public administrations.
The AVAF appreciates the predisposition of collaboration and support of the Permanent Training and Educational Innovation Service (SFPIE) and its interest in the work of the Agency in matters of public integrity.
(Regarding the guide to the application of anti-fraud measures of the National Anti-Fraud Coordination Service) Preliminate For some years now, there has been a governmental organizational tendency that inserts supposed “independent” bodies within ministerial structures. In fact, for there to be functional independence of a body, at least the following premises must be given: a) That the appointment does not occur by free appointment or appointment nor can it entail free cessation (during the period of its mandate or exercise it can only be dismissed for assessed reasons); b) That in the appointment process the merits and competences of the different candidates are objectively assessed; and (c) That the body is not within the hierarchical structure (enjoying, at least, an effective status of functional autonomy) of the ministerial departments nor is it subject to guidelines or subordinate to other bodies. The reality of these organizational solutions (to some extent fakes or impostadas) begins to offer different modalities, some of them inserted in the Ministry of HFP (for example, OIRESCON, which I already dealt with at the time: https://www.hayderecho.com/2019/03/07/las-instrucciones-de-la-oficina-independiente-de-regulacion-y-supervision-de-la-contratacion/ ; and now, for reasons of contingency, the National Anti-Fraud Coordination Service takes center stage). The phenomenon would require more intense attention on the part of the doctrine. The creation of the National Anti-Fraud Coordination Service (SNCA) was carried out by the twenty-fifth additional provision of the General Subsidies Law, incorporated in 2015 to comply with the provision established in Article 3.4 of Regulation (EU, EURATOM) 833/2013, on investigations carried out by OLAF (European Luca Anti-Fraud Office). However, the provisions of recital 10 of that regulation must be taken into account when it states: “Where a Member State has not set up a specialised service at national level responsible for the task of coordinating the protection of the Union’s financial interests and the fight against fraud, a service (‘the anti-fraud coordination service’) should be designated to facilitate cooperation and the exchange of information. n effective with the Office”. In other words, this service was created in the alternative in the absence of an institution (specialised service, whether it is called an Agency or any other name) which should have, by the nature of things, a status of functional autonomy similar to that provided by OLAF. And as long as it does not exist, which is happening today (although the Draft Law made public yesterday, March 8, by the Ministry of Justice, on the protection of persons who report “on corruption”, does create, although with very limited functions, an “Independent Authority for the Protection of the Informant”) such functions of coordination of the protection of the financial interests of the Union will be carried out provisionally. that service, which has been transferred to national law under the same name as laid down in the European regulation. The logical thing would be for these “provisional” functions to be placed in the specialized body in their day, if it is not designed as a capital institution without effective competences in integrity. What The European regulations do not tell us is how to articulate this “service”. La DA 25ª of the LGS established that “it will exercise its powers with full independence“, a characterization that does not fit very well with the forecast contained in Royal Decree 682/2021, when it is stated that it exercises its functions under the direction and supervision of the National Audit Office, both bodies with the rank of general subdirectorate dependent on the IGAE. Despite the dialectical efforts it entails (for example in article 22 of Royal Decree Law 36/2020 and in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan), and thus we have sold it to the European Union, calling the IGAE an independent body would not meet the aforementioned requirements either. Admittedly, as was said, the creation of the SNCA was due to that requirement of context (absence of an institution or specialized body to combat fraud in Spain), and in order to comply with that anomie in order to give effect to the provisions of Article 3.4 of the OLAF Regulation. However, in that same paragraph 3.4 “in fine”, an important closing clause is foreseen: “Where appropriate, in accordance with national law, the anti-fraud coordination service may be considered the competent authority for the purposes of this Regulation”. In other words, what the OLAF Regulation does – as it could not be otherwise – is to recognise the obvious: the principle of institutional autonomy as regards the transposition of EU law by the Member States requires that it will be the internal system of distribution of competences of each State. the one that determines to what extent the SNCA will or will not be a “competent authority” for the purposes of the aforementioned regulations. Something that obviously in our case does not occur. The OLAF Regulation therefore gives the task of “coordinating the protection of the Union’s financial interests and the fight against fraud”, which has many limitations in itself in a State of composite structure (with levels of government endowed with regulatory and organisational autonomy), from the consideration of such a “service” as a “competent authority”. Two very marked roles that in the execution of the PRTR must be taken into account. As has been said, these regulatory budgets served to create the aforementioned body in 2015 under the conditions set out above; but this was a contingent measure (in the absence of a specialised institution), derived from the TFEU (Articles 310, 317 and, in particular, 325) and Directive 1303/2013, from common provisions on European funds. and for a management area then limited (European ESI funds of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020), but that the countercyclical measures implemented with the European Recovery Instrument and with the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism itself, have multiplied by five the financial resources to be implemented in each budget year. In addition, the requirements of the EU’s 2018 Financial Regulation already made it crystal clear that the shared management of European funds required all national authorities to adopt measures to prevent, detect and…
