En nuestras manos está

Pasado mañana, domingo 2 de abril de 2023, es nuestra última gran oportunidad de decidir si queremos otros cuatro años más de “desgovern dels millors”, o si una parte del pueblo soberano, la que tiene derecho a voto, quiere un cambio radical en nuestro pequeño GRAN país. (Creo que no hace falta decir que a la hora de votar se debería tener presentes a los que aun siendo ciudadanos del país todavía no pueden ejercer dicho derecho). En nuestras manos está.

Apostar por el “continuismo” es seguir consintiendo que el Cap, en funciones, se espere al 3 de abril para emprender acciones por difamaciones por una noticia que data del ¡¡18 de marzo de 2016!! (Digo yo que tiempo ha tenido más que suficiente porque desde entonces han pasado más de siete años). En nuestras manos está.

Apostar por el “continuismo” es seguir consintiendo que no salgan a la luz informes como el que Martin Kreutner, decano emérito de la Academia Internacional Anticorrupción, (IACA) hizo el pasado 9 de marzo de 2023, titulado: “A brief review on the Anti-Corruption & Anti-money Laundering State of Play in the Principality of Andorra”, del pasado 9 de marzo, en el que se dice, y cito textualmente, lo siguiente: “Andorra was confronted with various (both alleged as well as adjudicated) banking and financial scandals, in particular between 2002 and 2018. Some of those made it even into the notorious “Panama papers” and the likewise notorious “Pandora papers”, respectively.

As, inter alia, investigated and disclosed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), based upon a massive document leak, this data revealed a small agency created by the Banc Agricol i Comercial D’Andorra SA, which is commonly known as ANDBANK and is one of the biggest banks in the Principality, liaising with lawyers in Panama to set up structures that eventually contributed to bringing forward and establishing a huge international tax evasion scheme and money laundering architecture. The documents also reveal the role that Andorra has played in the past as an attractive tax haven for (too often) murky fortunes and revenues, “aiding those accruing wealth with few questions asked until 2017”.

Over the course of two years, more than 600 reporters from 117 countries have worked on the Pandora Papers, an international journalistic investigation also coordinated by the ICIJ, and set up to analyze 11.9 million internal files from 14 offshore service providers. Prior to the investigation, the names of some of these firms were already under the scrutiny of several national tax authorities for their role in fomenting tax fraud and money laundering schemes around the world. Five decades of records, between the 1970s and 2020, have made it possible to reconstruct the financial dealings of politicians, billionaires, criminals and elite athletes in countries and territories that afford anonymity and low tax rates to foreign capital. Overall, names that showed up in the context of the revelations included, among others, the (then) Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola; Chines entrepreneur Gao Ping, whose business illegally transferred about € 70 million from Andorra to China; Luis Carlos Fernandes Afonso, financial director of the Petros Foundation, linked to Brazil’s Petrobras oil company and also linked to the country’s largest ever corruption scandal known as “lava Jato” (car wash); Carlos Fernando Costa, the former president of Petros; Jose Regojo Velasco, a Portuguese who sold the Massimo Dutti clothing business to Spanish giant Inditex in 2012; and the Malaysian financier, Jho Low, who created with the help of the US law firm Baker McKenzie the embezzlement of more than $ 4.5 billion from a Malaysian economic development fund, a scheme commonly referred to as the “1MDB scandal”.

Andorra’s ability to properly regulate its banking sector was drawn into question also when, in 2015, one of its largest banks, BANCO PRIVATE ANDORRA (BPA) was issued with a (so-called) `Section 311´ notice from FinCEN, the US financial crime enforcement network (the latter actually an agency of the US Department of the Treasury). BPA was apparently not given an opportunity to formally respond to the allegations and the bank and its Spanish subsidiary, BANCO MADRID, were later nationalized by the Andorran and Spanish authorities. The Andorran Bank’s assets were subsequently sold by the Andorran government for a fraction of their value to a US private equity fund, regardless of the fact that FinCEN withdrew its subject `311-notice´ less than a year after the designation. Court proceedings brought by BPA’s shareholders against the Andorran and Spanish authorities have demonstrated that the instances of money laundering alleged by FinCEN had already been reported to the Andorran banking regulator in line with Andorran AML procedures and that obviously no wrongdoing had been committed by the bank, or its employees. The scandal could end up costing hundreds of millions of Euros to the Andorran taxpayer as the Government may be forced to compensate the bank’s shareholders for the losses incurred as a result of the alleged mishandling of the issue”.

La noticia sobre ANDBANK de la que se habla en el informe de Kreutner, en su día, fue recogida, curiosamente, por uno de los periodistas de la sección de investigación de El País, ¡¡el 5 de octubre de 2021!!, que tanto y tanto ha atacado, con su otro compañero de fatigas del mismo medio, a la Banca Privada d’Andorra, pero en su versión inglesa: “AFSI, the obscure Andorran firm that handled hundreds of offshore companies for its clients”. ¿Alguno de ustedes sabe si alguna de “nuestras intachables instituciones” ha hecho algo al respecto? ¿Quizá al actual Cap, en funciones, se le pasó hacer una “carta” al “Magnific Senyor” tal y como hizo su predecesor, también en funciones, “a fi de vetllar per la bona reputació i la perennitat de la plaça financera andorrana”?

Apostar por el “continuismo” es seguir consintiendo que no salga a la luz la noticia que el pasado 29 de marzo apareció en FORBES, titulada: “European banking scandals are undermining transatlantic trust”, en la que se hace eco del informe de Kreutner, y en la que se puede leer, y cito textualmente: “How Andorra manages its outsized banking sector will be at the heart of the elections and EU negotiations. Prime Minister Xavier Espot –who is running for re-election– is accused by investors of subverting the rule of law in an alleged abuse of power aimed at protecting Andorra’s ancient banking families from the scrutiny of US law enforcement. The scandal, which has become known in the media as Andorragate, should serve as a cautionary tale for investors and policymakers alike.

In 2015, one of Andorra’s largest banks, Banca Privadad’Andorra (BPA), was forcibly nationalized by Andorran authorities following the issuance of a notice by the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which designated BPA a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern. These claims were presented without evidence and never investigated by the Andorran authorities. BPA’s CEO, Joan Pau Miquel, spent two years in prison in Andorra without facing any charges. BPA’s shareholders are now pursuing a €500 million claim against the government of Andorra for the unfair and reckless takeover of the bank.

Evidence has since come to light which suggests that the government at the time was under pressure from the United States to take action against money laundering and used BPA as a scapegoat to protect other banks from scrutiny. Former Minister of the Interior of Spain, Francisco Martinez, recently claimed in a letter to the Andorran Prime Minister that the Financial Intelligence Unit of Andorra (UIFAND) may even have fed FinCEN incorrect and misleading information which led the US agency to issue the notice. At the time, US law enforcers had shown interest in an alleged money laundering operation run by a Dutch drug-trafficking ring through Credit Andorrá, another Andorran bank with close ties to the government, according to explosive allegations made this month by private investigator, Paco Marco in a Spanish TV documentary, allegations which made headlines in Spain and Andorra”. En nuestras manos está.

Apostar por el “continuismo” es seguir consintiendo que la “Justicia” sea más justa para unos pocos, que para el resto. Es seguir permitiendo que según qué personas se perpetúen en el poder, para hacer y deshacer a su libre albedrio. Es seguir dividiendo la sociedad entre “els bons andorrans”, los que les ríen las gracias, y “els dolents”, todos los que no nos hace ninguna gracia su manera de hacer. En nuestras manos está.

Andorra, sí o sí, necesita un cambio radical en el poder. Andorra hace años que no puede seguir permitiéndose el lujo de vivir de espaldas a la cruda realidad, como si en los últimos 16 años aquí no hubiese pasado nada, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional. (No voy a obviar que también hemos padecido una terrible pandemia, de la gestión de las distintas olas ya he hablado más que suficiente, y que se ha llevado, desgraciadamente, a 159 ciudadanos andorranos). Desde la mayor crisis económica, sigo opinando que fue una “crisis de valores”, habida desde la II Guerra Mundial, hasta ahora, la de 2007/2008, porque la de ahora es de aúpa ya que en la anterior tan sólo se tuvo que “rescatar bancos” y en la que ya ha asomado la cabeza habrá que “rescatar países enteros”, la deuda del país pasó de 533M de euros, lo que representaba un 18’44% del PIB, a la última que servidor conoce, la de 2021, que es de 1.366M de euros, lo que representa un 48’51% del PIB. Nuestros sucesivos gobernantes se decidieron por tirar la casa por la ventana, y han ido incrementando la deuda hasta hacerla del todo insostenible. (Añadan a esa deuda todo lo que se debería haber provisionado a la CASS desde hace décadas, y que los gobiernos sucesivos han ido dejando de herencia a sus sucesores, y se podrán hacer una idea aproximada del estado de nuestra economía). En nuestras manos está.

Desconozco, ni soy adivino ni tengo ninguna bola de cristal, el resultado que saldrá pasado mañana. Pero sé perfectamente que un cambio radical en el poder acabaría con toda esta pesadilla en la que los mismos que nos han metido son los que ahora prometen “soluciones mágicas” a todos sus despropósitos. En nuestras manos está.

Intenten ser felices, mientras se lo permitan las autoridades incompetentes.