After spending almost an hour repeating to the Madrid Assembly that the information he had on the position of extraordinary professor of the wife of the President of the Government was based on press information and on the “numerous” contributions ‘” or opinions that came to him from professionals inside and outside the university, the dean of the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, Jorge Clemente, was confronted this week to the abrupt question of Socialist MP Marta Bernardo:
— Do you have a particular connection with the case in question?
– Nothing.
In this “nothing” that the dean recognized, the second session of a commission of inquiry developed, in a general way, which aims to elucidate the alleged favorable treatment of Begoña Gómez, co-director of the Chair of Transformation Competitive Social at Complutense. As Gómez did not testify on the first day, the rector denied any irregularity in the creation of the title and the general auditor only reported an administrative infraction in a contract of 24,000 euros of services provided, the PP and Vox were now . trying to inject encouragement into a commission that will last at least until February, albeit with diminishing expectations.
The popular had placed certain hopes in the intervention of Dean Clemente, because his relationship with the rector, Joaquín Goyache, is not really cordial: he requested his resignation during a board of directors of the university held in July, precisely because of the press information on Begoña Gómez’s master’s degree. This Wednesday he denounced alleged irregularities, but not linked to Gómez, but rather to eminently formal defects in the functioning of the extraordinary chairs of his own faculty.
He also said they had opened a case against him for “workplace harassment” for being excessively curious about the matter, according to his suspicions. Furthermore, he speculated that the rector could have decided at the time to authorize Gómez’s position of extraordinary professor to grease his relations with the PSOE, in the same way as the granting of the title of student illustrious to Isabel Díaz Ayuso could seek to cement his good treatment. with the PP. Maybe so, but maybe not, because he had no proof either way, as he immediately added.
Reputation and misinformation
The dean’s investigative zeal was due, as he explained, to the “reputational damage” caused to the university after Gómez’s dealings with the institution were revealed to the press. The deputies also questioned the two other speakers of the day on the question of reputation, the rector of the Autonomous University (UAM), Amaya Mendikoetxea, and her counterpart of Carlos III, Ángel Arias, summoned to the session by Más Madrid to explain the procedures of their respective institutions regarding extraordinary chairs.
Both wanted to be diplomatic, but they suggested that the issue, minor in economic terms – the financing of extraordinary chairs does not exceed 0.5% of the budget – could have been inflated by the media. “So much information and misinformation about this matter affects the reputation not of Complutense, but of all public universities,” Mendikoetxea said. “There’s a lot of information and a lot of misinformation. A collective effort must be made to promote teaching and research work,” Arias said.
The two men agreed, as was already known before the commission was convened and Goyache had reiterated it during the first session, that the name “chair” could be misleading for these degrees financed by companies. Daniel Varela and Antonio Sánchez, from Más Madrid, argued that its mere existence could stimulate the colonization of the public institution by the private sector, but this was not the subject of the debate, because the president of the commission, the popular Susana Pérez, Quislant insisted.
The rector of the UAM recalled that it had to make “a significant reduction” due to insufficient university funding, and the rector of Carlos III went further. “The budget, if the current figures are maintained, seriously compromises activity,” he declared about the regional government’s accounts, after assuring that “staff are in a critical situation.”
Sessions at least until February
The lackluster course of the session suggests limited benefit from subsequent appearances, which move away, like concentric circles, from examination of Gómez’s alleged favorable treatment to focus on lower-ranking officials and technicians. There are two working days left before the end of the year and the next ones will not take place until February, since January is a non-working month at the Madrid Assembly. But Vox asked to go further and now investigate the computer program made available to the Gómez presidency with private financing, a possibility that the PP does not exclude and which could extend the commission until spring .
