The minister’s spokesperson, Pilar Alegriadefended the “rescue” of the airline Plus Ultra and stressed that when establishing these loans “absolutely” transparent criteria were taken into account and technical aspects which have been validated by the Court of Auditors, the CJEU and the European Commission.
As he declared during the press conference after the Council of Ministers, he indicated that in 2020, coinciding with the coronavirus pandemic, and through the solvency fund managed by SEPI, created an endowment of approximately 3,000 million, among other things, “to save our country’s key businesses, primarily the airlines.”
Likewise, he emphasized that The loans, which were also granted to Air Europa, Volotea or Air Nostrum, have already mostly been returned with interests and aimed to “save large companies, fundamental in our country”.
“When establishing these loans, they took into account absolutely transparent criteria and validated technical aspects by the Court of Auditors, by the Court of Justice of the European Union and approved by the European Commission”, insisted Alegría, who pointed out that in some other countries this was not the case.
Precautionary measures
Last Saturday, A Madrid judge has released, with precautionary measures, the owner of the Plus Ultra airline, Julio Martínez, and its executive director, Roberto Roselli, after being arrested in an open operation for alleged money laundering.
The investigations focused on the royal decree approved on March 9, 2021 by the Government which gave the green light to Plus Ultra aid with 53 million euros in loans from the Solvency Support Fund SEPI Strategic Companies.
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