The Diplomat
The First Vice President of the Government, Carmen Calvo, announced yesterday that Spain and Portugal are going to initiate the dossier before UNESCO so that the circumnavigation of Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano becomes part of the world heritage.
Carmen Calvo chaired yesterday the IV meeting of the Plenary of the National Commission for the Commemoration of the V Centenary of the expedition of the first circumnavigation of the world. The meeting was held telematically and was attended, in the Moncloa complex, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya; the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Minister of Culture and Sports, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes; the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero; and the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
During the meeting, in which the development and implementation of the program of activities linked to the V Centenary of the expedition was discussed, the Vice-President informed that 336 official activities have been approved to date as part of the official institutional agenda of the commemoration, which includes events both in Spain and in the rest of the world. In spite of the pandemic situation, according to Moncloa, “the V Centenary Commission has not stopped working during these months and has been moving forward and approving more projects to actively maintain all that this event means”.
Among the official activities and events carried out, Calvo highlighted the exhibition La Fábrica del Mundo (The Factory of the World), which is on display at the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, and which contextualizes the complexities that characterized this first circumnavigation, and the V Centenary project of Google Arts and Culture.
Carmen Calvo also announced that a dossier will be submitted to UNESCO for the first circumnavigation to become part of the international organization’s Memory of the World documentary heritage register. The candidacy will be presented in coordination with the Portuguese National Commission in charge of the commemoration of the Fifth Centenary. It is a medium-term objective that, if successful, “would help to record how important this universal feat was for the whole world”, she said.
The decision to present the candidacy was taken in January 2019 in Madrid by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, and his Portuguese counterpart, Augusto Santos Silva, in coordination with Carmen Calvo. In November of that same year, the then acting Minister of Culture, José Guirao, announced before the 40th General Conference of UNESCO the intention of the two Iberian countries to present a joint candidacy so that “the importance of this feat for humanity is recognized for its educational, scientific and cultural impact”. He also specified that the objective of Madrid and Lisbon was to present the dossier to UNESCO within the period corresponding to the fifth centenary of the expedition, which culminates precisely in 2021.
The National Commission is chaired by Carmen Calvo and has three vice-presidents: Arancha González Laya, Margarita Robles and José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes. It also has the participation of María Jesús Montero, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Isabel Celaá, and the Minister of Science and Innovation, Pedro Duque. Among the members are the councilors of the autonomous communities of the Basque Country, Andalusia, Castilla y León and the Canary Islands, who have joined this National Commission for the first time because of “the close links between these regions and the expedition”, according to Moncloa.
