Begoña Gómez, wife of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has requested her acquittal in the case for which she must be tried by a popular jury for the co-direction of a chair at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).
Read more Seat will evaluate the continuity of the brand beyond 2030 according to demand and the market
In her defense statement, accessed by La Vanguardia, her new lawyer argues that she already had a professional career and that, contrary to the thesis of Judge Juan Carlos Peinado, she did not use the UCM to advance her career but decided to take a step back to avoid conflicts of interest in the company she worked for and that could access public contracts.
Furthermore, it recalls that Gómez, prior to her husband’s appointment, had already been collaborating with the UCM. Specifically, she held the position of co-director of the Continuing Education Diploma for Fundraising Technician from 2012 to 2014. Subsequently, she was co-director of the own Master’s Degree in Public and Private Fundraising Management in Non-Profit Organizations from 2014 until 2024.
The statement clarifies one of the points on which Peinado based his investigation, which was that Gómez was co-directing a master’s degree without having the appropriate qualification. Her lawyer explains that the exceptional nature of extraordinary chairs is their purpose, which is not strictly academic: fundraising to allow the university to develop projects of social interest that could not be financed with its budget.
“For this reason, the director of the extraordinary chair does not necessarily have to be linked to the university and does not have to hold a higher academic degree. Chair director, on one hand, and professor, on the other, are not synonyms nor can they be equated,” he emphasizes.
Therefore, in her defense, she argues that in no case does the UCM require a higher university degree to direct extraordinary chairs or to teach in own degrees, “since they are not official degrees.”
She also dismisses the accusation that Gómez influenced or exerted moral pressure on the rector or vice-rector of the University “nor on any other authority or official taking advantage of her marital relationship to obtain the creation of the extraordinary Chair she directed.” Thus, she defends that the extraordinary chair has not meant “any economic benefit” for Sánchez’s wife.
Read more The Trump ‘think tank’ comes to the defense of Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta at a Vox event
