The Atapuerca Foundation, a public entity whose patronage is part of the Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Castilla y León (PP) and which has received more than one million euros in grants since 2023, according to documents seen by EL PAÍS, granted regional president Alfonso Fernández Manuelico four months ago, independent elections in this community. The actor received the Award for the Development of Human Values from the brothers of Queen Emeritus Sofia this month in Burgos, where the headquarters of this organization is located, which is centered on the prehistoric farm of Burgal. “It is rude, not obeying the moral code and the minimum of decency,” said Francisco Igea, a former independent vice president and leader of Ciudadanos in the government coalition headed by the Popular de Manueco Party. This is how the Fundación justified its award: it was given “for the foundation’s support of the Atapuerca project over the years.”
The ceremony took place this month in Burgos, where the leader acknowledged, according to his government’s communications portal, “the work carried out by the Atapuerca Foundation, which has allowed this project to be established as an essential reference for the study of human evolution and the first inhabitants of Europe.”
The High Office “reaffirmed the permanent support of the Junta de Castilla y León for the Atapuerca project and emphasized that this development has become a center of tourist and social attraction thanks to the efforts of the Group of Economic and Social Agents of Burgos and the rest of the community,” in addition to thanking Emerita Sofía for her work during the years of her rule.
Fundación made this designation “for the Foundation’s support of the Atapuerca Project over the years.”
This support has numbers, as stated on the government support portal, with council allocations of 850,000 euros over three years for the building, another allocation of 100,000 and further allocations of 70,000 euros for this institution. More than a million dollars for an organization that among its sponsors stands out Consejería de Cultura, the energy company Iberdrola, Ayuntamiento, Diputación de Burgos (both) and the builder and duoino of a large independent media conglomerate, Antonio Miguel Méndez Pozo, implicated in many causes of corruption.
“Usually suspicious,” Ejeya said in statements to this memoir, expressing his anger at this recognition of Manyweko, especially when the community goes to the polls on March 15, barring an unexpected twist.
“Because of the non-compliance with the moral code and the minimum of decency, the Board of Directors forms part of the care through culture,” criticizes the former Vice President, who asks for decency and suggests that these “mamunios” at least if the actor leaves it, “are not in an active and giving volume.”
“I give myself an award and make money, it’s a dream. If I had the minimum vergüenza, I put Queen Sofía as patroness and she is a lion,” the politician who believes that his former boss in the executive branch has “lost the sense of irony” in a measured way because the ceremony is always celebrated in these weeks. Last year and this time it coincided a few months before the elections.
Igea announced that he would ask the Cultural Council of Gonzalo Santonja (PP) for the award and its conditions in the regional courts. There is another example of harmony between the autonomous conservative government and the organization that now rewards its president: a foundation library specifically called Gonzalo Santonja.