Prosecutors investigate Carboneras councillors over Algarrobico hotel licence vote

The councillors, five of whom are affiliated with the PSOE and two of whom are non-aligned, voted at a municipal plenary session on 17 June to leave the matter on the table while seeking further reports. The decision prompted a complaint from environmental group Salvemos Mojácar, submitted to prosecutors two days later.

The group described the councillors' actions as "unacceptable disobedience" and "a manifest act of malfeasance", arguing that they had failed to comply with an order from the High Court of Justice of Andalucía (TSJA).

Prosecutors have now requested the minutes of the 17 June plenary session from Carboneras town hall. The session concerned a proposal endorsed by the Advisory Council of Andalucía (CCA) for an ex officio review of the licence granted to Azata del Sol in January 2003.

Although the licence was subsequently declared null and void at a plenary session on 7 July, with the Carboneras mayor and seven other councillors voting in favour, the Environment Division of the Public Prosecutor's Office considers that a criminal offence may have been committed, based on the environmental group's allegations.

Carboneras town hall has provided prosecutors with the requested information, including legal reports and additional material to supplement documents already submitted.

The environmental group's complaint named the seven councillors who voted to leave the proposal on the table: José Luis Amérigo, Ángeles Carrillo, Felipe Cayuela, Francisco Capel, Vanesa Fuentes, Mariana Esteban and Isabel Hernández.

The campaigners rejected the councillors' explanation as "false" that further financial oversight reports were needed before a decision could be taken, arguing that the CCA had already issued a favourable opinion on the proposed action. They described the delay as "an unacceptable ploy to keep dragging the issue out", which they said had involved "20 years of institutional defiance".

Following the events, the PSOE opened disciplinary proceedings and announced the temporary suspension from the party of the five councillors who belong to it. They include José Luis Amérigo, who had been the party's spokesperson in Carboneras until then.

The environmental groups' lawyer, José Ignacio Domínguez, said Azata del Sol, the company behind the hotel, was expected to challenge the town hall's decision to annul the licence.

"It will appeal through the administrative courts in Almeria and then, when it's told that the licence is illegal, it'll appeal to the TSJA, which will again tell it that the licence should never have been granted," he said, predicting "another delay in this never-ending" case.

Domínguez also argued that any legal action by the company would not stop measures taken by Carboneras town hall. The municipality is responsible for ordering the demolition of the hotel, although third parties could carry out the work under an existing agreement between the Andalucía regional government and the Spanish state to restore the site and remove the building.

The Carboneras plenary's decision fulfilled a TSJA ruling requiring the municipality to conduct an ex officio review of the 2003 licence granted for the hotel's construction in the protected El Algarrobico area of Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park.

The extraordinary plenary session held on 17 June was intended to declare null and void the building licence granted by Carboneras town hall in January 2003, fulfilling one of the TSJA's final requirements. Without this step, the hotel's demolition could not proceed legally.

However, the vote once again produced no valid decision, with the five PSOE councillors and two non-aligned councillors voting instead to leave the proposal on the table. They said they needed further reports on the potential financial consequences for the municipality before deciding whether to annul the licence.

Their stated concern was not the hotel's planning legality, which the courts have challenged for years, but the potential financial liability that could result from declaring the municipal permit null and void.

The concern is that Azata del Sol could seek a multimillion-euro compensation payment for losses arising from the annulment of a licence granted by the town hall more than two decades ago. For a municipality with around 8,400 residents and a limited budget, a liability of that scale could be extremely difficult to absorb.

The issue is politically awkward for the PSOE, which controlled Carboneras when the licence was granted under then-mayor Cristóbal Fernández 23 years ago. The permit was supported by favourable reports from several administrations then governed by the Socialists, both in the Andalucía regional government and at state level.

The PSOE later turned El Algarrobico into a symbol of illegal development and environmental protection, repeatedly promising to demolish the hotel.

Against that background, the Carboneras Socialist group, led by José Luis Amérigo Fernández, the nephew of the mayor who granted the original licence, announced that it would vote against annulling a permit that his own party had spent years demanding be revoked, pending further information about the process's financial consequences for the municipality.