The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, and the Minister of Education of Panama, Lucy Molinar, signed an agreement this Friday that definitively confirms Panama as the organizing country of the XI International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE), which will be held in 2028. The formal ceremony took place at the headquarters of the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the old town. With a painting of Simón Bolívar in the background, García Montero gave a brief review of the history of these congresses promoted by the Spanish Government to “defend Spanish culture and in Spanish.” The director of Cervantes took the opportunity to launch a political dart at the most nostalgic Spanish right-wing sectors: “Spain abandoned all the imperialism of the Franco era, and the one who, in the name of the 9%, wants to be the emperor of the rest of the 530 million Spanish speakers makes a fool of himself.”
This Friday’s signing, reported by this newspaper, puts an end to a controversy that has been going on between the director of Cervantes and the director of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), at the last CILE, held in Arequipa (Peru), last October. Last year’s congress closed without the usual announcement of the city that was to take over, even though the representatives of the 23 language academies had agreed that it would be Panama, which was the only formal candidacy that was presented and that met the formal requirements for it.
However, García Montero, writer and columnist for EL PAÍS, with the option of Panama because, he noted, it had not been officially communicated to him nor had it been agreed upon with Cervantes, as established by institutional protocols. RAE sources acknowledged that the decision had not been officially conveyed to García Montero in Arequipa “because the situation of tension and disagreement that the Cervantes director had caused meant that it was not the best time for the announcement.”
The protocol act of signing the agreement, which coincided with the celebration in the Panamanian capital of the cultural festival Centroamérica Cuenta (CAC), was also attended by the Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs and International Cooperation of the Panamanian Government, Carlos Guevara Mann; the president of the Panamanian Academy of Language, Jorge Eduardo Ritter. It was also attended by the Spanish ambassador in Panama, Guzmán Palacios Fernández, and the president and founder of the CAC, Sergio Ramírez. The Nicaraguan writer, winner of the Cervantes Prize, has just entered the Royal Spanish Academy this week.
The congress to be held next year does not yet have confirmed dates. The Panamanian Minister of Culture noted that “the challenge of making this meeting a turning point in who we are to think about what we want to be.” The director of Cervantes, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, stressed his commitment to “implement with the Academy everything possible to have a great meeting.” Although he warned that by 2028 his term will have concluded and that he will return to his “professor at the University of Brandada.”
With this agreement, the commitments for holding the Congress are set, on dates yet to be specified, with the consensus of Cervantes, Panama, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and the Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asale). This will be the . The first was in 2013, inaugurated by Prince Felipe of Spain, now king, and the then president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli. Two hundred professionals and experts of the Spanish language attended that sixth CILE and, as a novelty since these language summits had begun in 1997, in Zacatecas (Mexico), it was a virtual edition, open to the participation of the public attending the sessions and Internet users from all over the world.
