Brussels warns of a "high risk of corruption" in public contracts in Spain.

In its 2025 Rule of Law Report, the European Commission criticizes the failure to implement its National Anti-Corruption Strategy.

"Public contract tenders, political party financing, and public infrastructure projects in Spain are key sectors with a high risk of corruption." This is according to the 2025 Rule of Law Report, published today by the European Commission and coming in the midst of a government crisis hit precisely by corruption.

The warning is not new, but its severity appears to be increasing. Forty percent of Spanish companies believe that corruption has prevented them from winning tenders in the last three years, according to the European report cited by the Flash Eurobarometer on Business Attitudes towards Corruption, which the Commission notes. This figure is practically double the level reported in the previous year's document and is well above the European Union average of 25%.

This year's Rule of Law Report is scheduled to close in 2024. For this reason, it does not include any references to, or the effects or opinions arising from, recent scandals, such as those that led the Supreme Court to order the provisional imprisonment of the former PSOE organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán. However, the case of former Minister of Public Works José Luis Ábalos is expressly mentioned, as the report indicates that "in October 2024, a former minister and member of Parliament was charged as a person of interest in an alleged corruption case related to the pandemic," and the case against the State Attorney General.

Brussels is focusing on the number of public tenders in which only one candidate applied, as these are the most suspect cases of rigging. In Spain, these cases rose to 33%, compared to the EU average of 29%.

"The main causes of complaints and communications regarding public procurement are alleged irregularities in the award of contracts, followed by alleged corrupt practices, complaints related to contract execution, and finally, issues related to the use of subcontracting," the Commission states.

Service contracts are, in Brussels' opinion, the most vulnerable, accounting for 64% of complaints about potential rigging.

On the other hand, the European Commission criticizes the fact that "political party financing remains a high-risk area, and no measures have been taken to reform electoral legislation in line with the Court of Auditors' recommendations."

The EU executive also emphasizes that "the development of the national anti-corruption strategy provided for by law has not yet begun." The Law regulating the protection of persons who report regulatory breaches and the fight against corruption, approved in 2023, mandated the government to adopt it before September 2024. However, with almost a year's delay, the work has yet to begin.

"According to stakeholders, despite the inclusion of anti-corruption priorities in sectoral plans and strategies, the absence of a unified strategy risks leading to fragmentation and insufficient oversight of anti-corruption measures," Brussels sources noted, adding that a first draft will be prepared now that Manuel Villoria Mendieta has been appointed chair of the Independent Whistleblower Protection Authority.

Finally, the European Commission also calls for greater efforts to combat foreign bribery, although it acknowledges that detection of these practices has improved.