Inaem, on the origin of the issue | Culture | EUROtoday

The irregularities attributed to Lluís Homar stem from agreements made between the director of the CNTC and Amaya de Miguel's Inaem. In statements to EL PAÍS, Homar maintains that in his mandate “there has not been any extra pay for work that has not been done” and that “there has been no desire to take money that was not appropriate.” In addition, the director stresses that each one his administration has been performed in settlement with the Inaem: “We have worked hand in hand from the beginning until now, always looking for ways to get the work done. We have gone through a pandemic, we have lived through times that have not been easy and we have always worked with the different people who make up the Inaem. And it must also be made clear that there is no desire to want to blame the Inaem or to take any responsibility off our shoulders, but that everything has been done jointly.”

Amaya de Miguel has not responded to EL PAÍS's request to make clear Homar's statements. His rapid successor, Joan Francesc Marco, has replied: “In my two terms at Inaem [fue también director general entre 1990 y 1995] Contracts have always been drawn up in accordance with the law, taking into account the indications of the legal services, which always find a solution. Not long ago, Lluís Homar asked me how I could participate in a film that would involve a week of filming. I consulted him and they gave me a solution: suspension of contract and salary for the duration of the filming and when the filming was over, activation of the contract.”

José Guirao, who was appointed Minister of Culture on June 14, 2018, a position he left on January 13, 2020, appointed Amaya de Miguel director of Inaem on the recommendations of experts in performing arts. His successor, Miquel Iceta, kept her in office: “I arrived at Culture on July 12, 2021, I confirmed all the general directors and Amaya de Miguel left on March 29, 2022, to be appointed general director of the Montemadrid Foundation,” the former minister explains to this newspaper.

The Inaem, founded in 1985 by José Manuel Garrido Guzmán, a key figure in Spanish theatre during the Transition, is an organisation that was necessary and brilliantly executed in the eighties of the last century, but for years it has been crying out for a renovation that not only makes it more flexible, but also takes into account the different needs of the labour sectors that are implicit in it. There are many voices that consider that the artistic production centres of the organisation should be run by managers and not by artists, something that has occurred in a very exceptional way in its four decades of existence: Isabel Navarro at the National Dramatic Centre, José Antonio Campos at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Rafael Pérez Sierra at the CNTC and the recently appointed Isamay Benavente at the Teatro de la Zarzuela. As soon as he took office, Urtasun promised to get on with it.