WRITTEN QUESTION E-2540/03 by Maurizio Turco (NI) to the Commission. Agreements between the Spanish State and the Vatican State which violate fundamental rights.
Date: 2003-07-30
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Holy See, Spain, church-State relations, competence of the Member States, denominational education, freedom of religious beliefs, religious discrimination, tax exemption

27.3.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 78 E/123

The data can be found in the tables below:

(Annual rate of increase 1993-2000 in %)

NVA/AWU
in real terms

Portugal

EU-12

< 4 ESU

4-100 ESU

> 100 ESU

All farms

4,55

3,89

5,14

− 0,60

7,31

− 0,53

3,62

0,21

NVA/AWU
in real terms

Specialist cer-
eals, oilseeds
and protein
crops

Specialist
horticulture

Specialist
vineyards

Specialist fruit
and citrus fruit

Specialist olives

Specialist
dairying

Cattle-dairying,
rearing and
fattening com-
bined

Portugal

− 2,09

4,97

4,62

3,36

− 0,21

4,66

12,26

(Annual rate of increase 1993-2000 in %)

(1) COM(2003) 359 final.

(2004/C 78 E/0125)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2540/03

by Maurizio Turco (NI) to the Commission

(30 July 2003)

Subject: Agreements between the Spanish State and the Vatican State which violate fundamental rights

The questioner would like to refer to:

(cid:1) Articles 6(1) and 6(2) of the EU Treaty, Articles 226 and 307 of the EC Treaty,

(cid:1) Articles 1(1), 14,16 and 27(3) of the Spanish Constitution; and

(cid:1) Articles 6, 10, 21 and 14(3) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

Knowing that:

(cid:1) the application of certain agreements concluded between the Vatican State and the Spanish State in
1976 and 1979 is giving rise to a violation of the fundamental rights of equality, freedom and non-
discrimination protected under EU law and the Spanish Constitution;

(cid:1) by virtue of the Agreement concerning Economic Affairs, the Catholic Church enjoys tax benefits and
exemptions that are not enjoyed by any other religious faith in Spain, which constitutes religious
discrimination against the other religious faiths registered in that country;

(cid:1) in addition to giving rise to a violation of the fundamental right protected under Article 14(3) of the
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and Article 27(3) of the Spanish Constitution, the Agreement
on Education and Cultural Affairs, through laws such as the Organic Law on Quality in Education,
contravenes Article 16(2) of the Spanish Constitution and Article 3(2) of Royal Decree 2438/1994, as
was established by the Supreme Court of the Canaries (TSJC) in its judgment No 153/2003.

Is the Commission aware of the above facts, and if it has taken them into consideration and assessed them,
what conclusions does it draw from this assessment?

Does it consider the agreements between the Holy See and the Spanish State to be incompatible with the
EC Treaty and the EU Treaty, and does it believe that the Kingdom of Spain has taken all appropriate steps
to remove the incompatibilities?

Does it believe that complaints against infringements of the Constitution should be brought only through
the country’s national law, or can they be taken into consideration by the Community institutions as
serious violations of the rule of law and democracy?

C 78 E/124

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(18 September 2003)

The Commission would point out that the matters to which the Honourable Member refers concern the
status granted by the Spanish State to religions, and in particular the Catholic religion. These matters do
not, therefore, fall within the scope of European Union law.

Accordingly, any incompatibilities with religious freedom that might come to light in this connection must
be dealt with at national level.

(2004/C 78 E/0126)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2541/03

by Maurizio Turco (NI) to the Commission

(30 July 2003)

Subject: The ‘Gescartera’ case and agreements between the Spanish State and the Holy See

Gescartera, the brokerage firm which invested in the stock market and became involved in Spain’s worst
stock-market fraud (leaving EUR 87 million unaccounted for) included among its clients a number of
organisations linked to the Catholic Church.

Six of Gescartera’s 15 largest clients in terms of volume of profits are religious bodies: Salesian Inspectors
of Mary Help of Christians, Order of Saint Augustine, Philippian Missionaries of Education, Emilio Álvarez
Gallego Foundation, Augustinian Missionaries and the Archbishopric of Valladolid. One of the clients
which entrusted most money to Gescartera, and accordingly one of the main beneficiaries of artificial
capital gains, was a body enjoying the exemptions provided for under Law 49/2002 on the tax
arrangements for non-profit-making bodies and tax incentives for patronage, which granted such bodies an
exemption in respect of income from property (Article 6).

Moreover, without wishing to lend credence to rumours that
the archbishopric simulated fictitious
ownership of the securities it invested, the amount invested does appear disproportionate in relation to an
archbishopric such as that of Valladolid.

The archbishopric’s accounts are opaque and contradictory, and it refused to cooperate when the
investigating magistrate asked it to furnish its accounts between 1996 and 1999, by which time it had
accumulated investments with Gescartera amounting to EUR 6 641 184 (which it withdrew when it learnt
that Gescartera was being investigated by the CNMV, the National Commission for the Securities Market),
and for the 2001 financial year, when it
invested EUR 150 253. The Spanish Bishops’ Conference
supported this refusal to cooperate on the grounds that ecclesiastical documents are inviolable on the basis
of the Agreement concerning Legal Affairs, which recognises and protects the Spanish Church’s right to
exclusive safekeeping of its archives and recognises that they are ‘inviolable’.

Under the Agreement concerning Economic Affairs between Spain and the Holy See, the system for
financing the Catholic Church takes the form of an allocation system based on each taxpayer’s income-tax
statement explicitly in favour of the Catholic Church, and an allocation from the Spanish general budget
(amounting to an average of 130 million pesetas).
In addition, the Catholic Church enjoys a VAT
exemption in contravention of Directive 91/680/EC (1). The fact that the budgets of the Catholic Church
and the various bodies linked to it are not public and the allocation from the state is not made conditional
on transparency in the Church’s financial management makes it extremely difficult to establish whether or
not the money which the Catholic Church invested on the stock market stemmed from the advantages it
enjoys by virtue of the agreements with the Spanish State.

Is the Commission aware of these facts, and if so, what initiatives has it taken or will it take in response to
these serious circumstances?