Madrid (EFE).- The King chaired this Monday the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Elcano Royal Institute, which was attended by the four living former presidents of the Government from the democratic period: Felipe González, José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy.
The meeting was held at the El Pardo Palace and was also attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the head of Defense, Margarita Robes, and the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta.
The coincidence of the four former presidents has allowed us to see at the beginning of the meeting conversations between the two former heads of the Socialist Executive, González and Zapatero (located to the right of the king both in the family photo and in the meeting), on the one hand, and the two from the Popular Party, Aznar and Rajoy (located to his left), on the other.
The latter have also shared with the former minister and former general secretary of their political formation, María Dolores de Cospedal, vice president of the Elcano Institute.
Among the attendees, the Governor of the Bank of Spain and Ana Botín
In the meeting chaired by Felipe VI, who greeted each and every one of the members of the Board of Trustees present at the beginning of the meeting, the annual accounts of the Institute were approved, which in 2022 obtained a surplus of 337,000 euros.
The president of the Institute, José Juan Ruiz, and its director, Charles Powell, have presented their corresponding reports and the activity report has also been approved. There were 50 public events organized last year and 312 documents published on the issues of its ten lines of research.
61% of the readers of these works are from outside Spain, with Mexico, Colombia and Peru as the countries that downloaded the most documents.
The document entitled “Why Latin America Matters” was presented at the meeting, which contrasts the visions that present this region as economically unsuccessful and politically unstable with what is considered to be reality, since it interprets that these perceptions are strongly biased by presumptions and prejudices.
Among the almost forty attendees at the meeting of the Board of Trustees were the Governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos; the presidents of Banco de Santander, Ana Botín; Caixabank, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri; Repsol, Antonio Brufau; and Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán; and the CEOs of Inditex, Óscar García; and Endesa, José Bogas. EFE