The PSOE has suffered a new setback in court. The Court of Instruction number 2 of Ibiza has decreed the provisional dismissal of the case that the Socialists filed against the Popular Party, the Consell and the public company FECOEV for an alleged crime of embezzlement in the contracting of the Fairground.
The judge has concluded that there is no evidence to justify the existence of irregularities in the assignment of the space and has closed the investigation.
The origin of the complaint: an alleged favored treatment
The PSOE’s complaint originated after a political act of the PP in April 2023 at the Ibiza Fairgrounds, in which the party presented its candidates for the municipal and island elections. According to the socialists, the Consell de Ibiza had held there, a day earlier, the Gold Medal ceremony, paying FECOEV an amount of 58,000 euros, while the PP only paid 3,300 euros for using the same infrastructure.
The PSOE argued that this difference in costs was a sign of favoritism towards the PP and denounced that no entry record of the formation formally requesting the use of the space or documentation justifying the cost reduction had been found.
PP’s defense: legal procedure without irregularities
During the judicial process, the PP and the Consell de Ibiza defended the legality of the contracting and provided evidence that refuted the socialist accusation, as reported by Diario de Ibiza. In his statement before the judge in September 2024, the president of the Consell, Vicent Marí, assured that the reservation of the space was made correctly, through a phone call, and that the rental of the venue was billed according to the rates established by FECOEV, including a 90% discount for being a non-profit entity.
Also, the PP clarified that only rented the space and that other services -mounting, lighting, sound and decoration- were contracted and paid directly to external suppliers, raising the total cost of the event to more than 10,500 euros. FECOEV, for its part, confirmed that, as a commercial entity subject to private law, does not process administrative records when acting as a service provider, so there was no irregularity in the management of the rental of the space.
Judge closes the case due to lack of criminal indications
In her resolution, the judge of the Court of Instruction number 2 of Ibiza determined that no evidence was found to justify the existence of a crime of embezzlement or irregularities in the contracting of the Recinto Ferial. The resolution establishes that the rates applied were within the regulations in force and that there is no evidence that the PP received favorable treatment.
For this reason, the judge decreed the provisional dismissal of the case, although the decision is not final and the PSOE has the possibility of filing an appeal.
A second judicial file in a few months for the PSOE
This court ruling is in addition to another setback suffered by the PSOE in December 2024, when the Court of Instruction number 4 of Ibiza filed the case known as La Vida Islados. In that case, the socialists accused the president of the Consell de Ibiza, Vicent Marí, of prevarication, influence peddling and coercion in the contracting of an advertising campaign in 2020 to promote the island in the midst of the tourism crisis due to the pandemic.
The judge determined that the emergency hiring was legally justified due to the tourist crisis situation and concluded that there was no evidence of a crime. The resolution of La Vida Islados was a blow to the PSOE, since the court itself endorsed that the actions of the Consell at that time were legal and necessary.
Political impact and PP reaction
The archiving of both cases is a setback for the PSOE’s strategy of using the courts to question the management of the PP in Ibiza. The Popular Party has defended at all times that these allegations were unfounded and that they were part of a political strategy rather than a judicial reality.
After learning of the decision of the Court of Instruction number 2, PP sources have pointed out that this ruling confirms that the socialist accusations were baseless and that the PSOE has tried to judicialize politics without success. They have also stressed that the PSOE of Ibiza has been left in evidence after these two consecutive judicial failures, which have dismantled their attempts to link the PP with alleged irregularities.
For its part, the PSOE has not yet announced whether it will appeal the ruling, although this new judicial setback calls into question its strategy and its ability to sustain its accusations against the PP and the Consell de Ibiza.
