The deputy for Culture, Juan de Dios Navarro, has criticized that no Minister of Culture of the Government of Ximo Puig “has come to the MARQ in eight years and now, three weeks before the regional and municipal elections, Minister Raquel Tamarit plans to visit tomorrow, Friday, the Archaeological Museum of the Provincial Council of Alicanteâ€.
Navarro recalls in a note sent this afternoon that there is an “outstanding debt of 190,000 euros that the Generalitat Valenciana still maintains today with the MARQ Foundation for its contribution as a patron”, while criticizing “the inexplicable delay in the appointment of the representative of the Council for this body, since it has remained deserted for eight years, until last Octoberâ€.
The deputy, who has also lamented the “continued contempt to which the Consell has subjected the MARQ and the province of Alicante during the last eight years”, specified that the previous minister in office, Vicent Marzà , “never visited the facilities of the museum or any of the many exhibitions exhibited during his tenure despite his national and international importanceâ€.
In relation to the sample that currently hosts the MARQ – “The legacy of the Qin and Han dynasties, China. Los Guerreros de Xi’an”-, Navarro has pointed out that neither the president Ximo Puig nor the minister in question “attended the inauguration despite having been issued an official invitation and despite being one of the most important cultural events at the national level and internationalâ€. Present at the event, on behalf of the Generalitat, were the vice-president of the Consell, Aitana Mas, and the Minister of Innovation, Josefina Bueno.
“That day, the minister had on her agenda the presentation of a Class on Democratic Memoryâ€, argues Navarro, who has described her absence at the inauguration as “unjustifiableâ€. “Neither did ministers, secretaries of state, or general directors from the Central Government attend the event, which demonstrates Pedro Sánchez’s disregard for Alicante culture,” he added. The presence of Mas and Bueno, on the other hand, did not convince the deputy: “they did send the heads of the CompromÃs and PSPV-PSOE list, with a clear electoral purpose.”
According to Navarro, “this abandonment of the Alicante culture and this lack of support for the Archaeological Museum by the Puig government, and since the first government of the Generalitat in 2015, is due to the lack of interest and, above all, the contempt to institutions that, like the MARQ, are a European benchmark and have been committed to caring for our heritage and enhancing our history for decadesâ€.
Navarro, who replaced Julia Parra as deputy for Culture when she resigned after her move from the Ciudadanos group to the Non-attached group, ends her statement denouncing the “alarming lack of funding for Alicante culture by the Council. Puig continues to despise the province of Alicante in cultural mattersâ€.
