The Spanish government has set up a group to carry out refunds of all fines that related to measures under the first state of alarm from March to June last year.
In July, the Constitutional Court ruled that the first state of alarm was unconstitutional; it has yet to pass judgement on the second. Following this ruling, the group was established. It comprises government delegations in the regions as well as the Tax Agency and certain ministries.
The total amount from fines was 1,142,127 euros. All of this has to be refunded. An online mechanism is being established to enable this.
As of May this year, a total of 481,969 "proposals for sanction" had been recorded. Of these, 172,482 actually resulted in a penalty. Andalusia had the most of these sanctions' proposals - 195,986 - followed by Madrid with 184,517.
Because of the "disproportionate workload", the ministry for territorial policy announced in May that it was speeding up the processing of fines. There were 235 staff in charge of determining whether, in view of the facts, it was appropriate or not to initiate proceedings. In July, the court's ruling brought this to an end.