It has been re -elected with 67% of the vote as president of the, together with its Group 1820 candidacy, in the elections held on Wednesday. In these elections, it was sought to renew, for a period of two years, six of the 11 members that make up the Governing Board. They have voted 620 Ateneists of the 2,600 members called.
Group 1820 (in reference to the year of foundation of the institution) came to govern in June 2021 with the objective of undertaking an expected, and discussed, renewal of the Athenaeum. The arduous task of modernizing maintaining the essences and without falling into the decline. “Now it’s time to finish the job,” says Arroyo.
Your program has been based on some points. The first: get partners. Already the creation of Group 1820 promoted affiliations, but for four years they have grown from 1,700 to 2,600. “This for me is very important: an institution must have a stable number of partners, and here it did not stop falling from the democratic recast of the Athenaeum in 1984, when it reached the figure of 6,700,” says the president.
Another concern of the Arroyo team was to achieve greater public relevance, more activity and visibility, which the president considers achieved. And the third pillar has been the financial one: a budget of about 900,000 euros has passed to almost two million annually. One of the most controversial moments happened when, in 2023, the Community of Madrid, chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, … any other institution. But now, says Arroyo, the collaboration has returned and the relationships are correct.
His mandates have seemed full of belligerence and criticism. “Actually the Athenaeum has always been a belligerent space, only that before our arrival that anger was not so disseminated. Of course, the opposition comes from a small but very vociferous group,” says Arroyo. The President has been accused of dictatorial or his political relationship with the PSOE has been shaved. “Is it that you can’t be from a political party?” Arroyo is surprised. But, despite the headlines and accusations, the president prefers to take iron from the thing: “If people come, you will see that there is a very good vibes and that nothing happens. Sometimes things are like that in such a living, democratic and participatory institution like this.”
Some of the most colorful actions promoted by Group 1820 have had to do with the revitalization as a social club of the famous Cacharrería room, famous for its gatherings in which the main flat of the Spanish intellectuality met; Or where, among many dark and nineteenth -aishes, Emilia Pardo Bazán was very alone.
Now Almudena Grandes, Carmen LaForet, Clara Campoamor, Carmen de Burgos, María Zambrano, Elena Fortún or Rosa Chacel. A man has also entered: Federico García Lorca. “What surprises me is that such a simple and important thing would not have been done before,” says Arroyo. Among the works to be completed, the start -up of the canteen, now closed by problems with the concessionary company, which the president wants to have open before summer, or, at the latest, for the new course.
Other re -elected positions have been (member of the Board of Directors of Prisa, editor of El País), as First Secretary, Gonzalo Vázquez, as second vice president, as second vowel, as a library partner, and Isabel Fuentes, as depositary. Thus, Group 1820 was imposed on the convergence candidacy for the democratic stability of the Athenaeum, with the presidency of Miguel Pastrana and the candidacy for the recovery of the essence of the Athenaeum, chaired by María Teresa Pedraza Guzmán de Lázaro.
