The Summer Courses at the University of Malaga (UMA) have started this Tuesday at the Palace of Congresses of Marbella with the participation of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ana Palacio, where five weeklies and a master conference will be given and which has more than 400 registered, as reported by the Foundation General (FGUMA).
Participating in the welcome were Juan Antonio García Galindo, vice-rector for Social Projection and Communication of the UMA; Carmen Díaz, general director of Culture and Education of Marbella, and Diego Vera, general director of FGUMA.
García Galindo has highlighted that “this is a academic space of freedom in which the debate will be very present during the development of all the courses. Marbella is a must for the University of Malaga, it is a benchmark for its demographic and economic potential and we must continue to discover its cultural possibilities”.
For his part, Díaz has indicated that it is already a tradition for Marbella to start the summer with this activity and has highlighted the very fruitful relationship of the city with the University: “It is important to give the option to citizenship to be able to form on highly topical issues such as those discussed this week”, he added. “We hope to achieve absolute success, as in previous years, and proof of this are the more than 400 registered in this venue”, he declared.
Iñaqui Carnicero, General Secretary of Housing of the Ministry of Transport and Mobility, has also offered this first photo of the courses, who has offered the first presentation of the seminar Access to housing: chimera or reality, directed by the architect Paula Cerezo. The speaker stressed that access to housing is included in the Constitution, in its article 47, and that it should not be used as a political tool, but rather as a point of union: “We need to reach consensus in this area. We are increasingly aware of this need as a society and we must build affordable housing.”
In this regard, he mentioned Low indices of subsidized housing in Spain, less than two percent, a figure that in Europe is around 12 percent and, in some countries, reaches 15. He has also talked about environmental challenges to fight against climate change, and social challenges, since, according to the expert , the typology of buildings and homes does not respond to the current reality. In addition, he has indicated that the administration must provide solutions to the problem of holiday homes and bet on the rehabilitation of buildings.
Carnicero has highlighted, as the latest reforms approved that will help resolve these situations, the Law on quality of architecture, which understands that this is a good of general interest, and the Law for the Right to Housing approved at the end of May of this same year.
“There is a world before and after the war in Ukraine”
After the official welcome and the start of three courses at the Palacio de Congresos, the training activity has continued with the conversation on geopolitics that the Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ana Palacio, has held a meeting with the UMA Law professor Magdalena Martín, held in the central space of the Hospitalillo and which has been broadcast live on the FGUMA Youtube channel.
The former minister, who has participated in the activity as a visiting professor at Georgetown University, has referred to the pandemic and, especially in recent months, to the russian invasion as the issues that are most marking the new international order. “We are at a crossroads. There is a world before Ukraine and after the war”, also influencing the latest events that took place this weekend in the city of Rostov-on-Don, with the uprising of the Wagner group troops, some incidents whose geopolitical effects could be of powerful.
Likewise, Palacio has also referred to the role played by the different actors on this international boardsuch as the “ambiguous” position, he has pointed out, that Africa maintains with respect to the support of the Russian conflict, and of the West, focusing above all on Europe and Spain.
Regarding the position that our country assumes in this transition of powers, the speaker highlighted the function of Spain as a connector, arguing that there are three lines of action on which our foreign policy has been based. The first of these, he has explained, has been our European essence. “Spain has contributed as much as any other nation to building Europe.” The anchorage to the Mediterranean and the overseas vocation complete these axes, two characteristics that give it, according to Palacio, an influence in Latin America, with a strength of culture in Spanish on both shores of the Atlantic, despite the fact that, the former minister has lamented , these bilateral relations have been weakened lately.
The novelists of the 50
The course has also started today in Marbella The novelists of the 50s. A lost generation, directed by the writer Antonio Soler, and whose inaugural conference was given by Ignacio Garmendia, editor and literary critic. The speaker began his intervention by highlighting the role of this group of authors as part of one of the periods that most marked the recent history of our country: the postwar period.
“With them I know restores the modernity that the Civil War took away and the aesthetic and formal concern prior to the armed conflict returns”, he specified. Alluding to the title of the seminar, Garmendia has stated that he does not believe that these novelists are a lost generation, since it includes names of reference in Spanish letters, such as Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Caballero Bonald, Ana María Matute or Carmen Martín Gaite. “Some were exiled and others died early, but they managed to fulfill themselves literaryally with works that are still perfectly valid today and continue to question us”, she has contributed.