Alicante (EFE).- The Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, assured this Thursday, in response to a question from the mayor of Elche, Carlos González, that as long as the technicians advise against moving the Lady of Elche to the city of Elche, ” this minister is not going to authorize it”.
In a breakfast discussion entitled ‘Objetivo Cultura’, organized by the Foro Más Europa of the Información newspaper at Casa Mediterráneo in Alicante, Iceta stated that this decision “is not strictly political” and that he would “love to inaugurate today” an exhibition in Elche with the Queen, but cannot “skip the criteria of the technicians”.
The minister, who has joked that this question was “surprising and unexpected”, since with the 125th anniversary of the discovery of the Lady, the Elche City Council pressed for this transfer, has stressed that he already has “prepared his tombstone: ‘Miquel Iceta was gay and danced’”, but that “he was gay, he danced and killed the Lady” does not fit in it.
However, Iceta has highlighted the creation of a working group with the Elche city council “that is monitoring the Lady, and if circumstances improve, it will be done”, but he has stressed that he has assumed “some risks, but when the risk is a third party and property of all, no”.
Do not create false expectations
“My obligation is to be very clear and not generate false expectations. Before, someone -in reference to the former Minister of Culture Carmen Calvo, who gave the go-ahead to an exhibition in Elche with the Lady in 2006- decided not to meet those technical criteria, but it is not my case”.
“There are some things that cannot be repaired, there is only one original (sculpture) and if you can take a risk, I do not see myself signing a transfer order that is not technically endorsed,” Iceta insisted.
Regarding the City of Light, he has stated that it is “aiming to obtain support from European funds, which are not managed by the Government”, but he has concluded that this, that of European funds, is “an open path through which we have what to bet”.
