No, Zapatero Did Not Secure the €53 Million Plus Ultra Bailout — The Sánchez Government Did

The claim spreading on Spanish social media says José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero secured a €53 million government rescue for Plus Ultra airline in March 2021. Half of that is true. The bailout happened. The amount is correct. But Zapatero had nothing to do with approving it.

The money came from a COVID-19 emergency fund managed by SEPI, Spain's state industrial holding company, under the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. El País, El Confidencial, and Reuters all reported this clearly at the time. Zapatero, who left the Spanish presidency in 2011, held no official position of any kind in 2021.

So where does Zapatero come in? Spanish fact-checkers Newtral and Maldita.es both investigated this. They found that Zapatero has informal advisory ties to Venezuela, and Plus Ultra's shareholder structure includes Venezuelan investors. Critics connected those dots and concluded Zapatero must have pulled strings behind the scenes. But informal ties are not the same as directing government policy, and no evidence has emerged showing Zapatero influenced the decision.

The bailout itself has faced legitimate scrutiny. Spanish courts investigated whether SEPI acted properly, given that Plus Ultra was a small airline with only around €9 million in annual revenue receiving €53 million in public funds. Those proceedings focused on SEPI officials and the Sánchez cabinet — not Zapatero.

This kind of claim spreads because it takes something real — a controversial bailout, a politician with foreign connections — and welds them together without evidence. If you see a story that names a specific person as the force behind a government decision, check whether that person actually held a government role at the time. In this case, they did not.