María Navarro Palacio, daughter of Pere Navarro Morera, since 2018 Special Delegate of State in the Barcelona Free Zone Consortium and member of the Confidence Circle of the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) of the Minister of Culture Miquel Iceta, has been hired by this department as Communications Coordinator for the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (Inaem). The hiring is the result of a public trial in which Navarro scored highly in an in-person interview. However, Navarro Palacio, 31, had not achieved good results in the previous objective tests due to his experience. The 15-minute interview was conducted behind closed doors on December 21, according to the rules of the contest, which began November 14 and the resolution of which was put forward by El Confidencial this Thursday.
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Already in a position of trust in the Iceta department, María Navarro was an advisor in her personal cabinet after taking over the culture portfolio in July 2021. As an applicant for the position at Inaem, Navarro scored 33 points between the two reviews of the first part, while another of the last 10 applicants scored 43.17 out of a possible 45. For the opposition, 18 people were initially admitted, including the journalist from El Mundo Alberto Luchini; the current holder of the position for which she was opposed, Noelia Molanes (whom she had received in the last two vacancies); Beatriz Clemente, former Director of Communications and Digital Marketing at the Conde Duque Center for Contemporary Culture in Madrid; or the former adviser of José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes (Iceta’s predecessor for culture), Diego Delgado Valor, according to public documents available on the Inaem website.
Of the 18, the 10 who scored more than 15 in this first phase went to the interview. A person familiar with the appeal says that from that first round there have been “controversial assessments of each applicant’s merit,” stressing that “it’s a non-appeal appeal competition because there is no exam, but the merits are assessed professionally and formative and later it goes to the face-to-face interview”, which has tipped the position in favor of Navarro.
The procedure for the post, temporary and outside the contract (hence her salary), states in its bases that professional merit would be assessed (with a maximum of 40 points), ie experience in similar, lower or higher positions; and training (another five as a limit) for degrees, courses, seminars, congresses… Navarro’s daughter scored 33 points between the two assessments, while another applicant, the former communications director of Conde Duque, achieved 43.17 out of 45, and Molanes, who is doing this work, 35.75 points. Another participant in the process emphasizes: “We thought that if we see these two candidates being presented, one of them will be elected.”
A maximum of 19 points could be awarded for the interview. They took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture on December 21, when the marks for the first phase were already known, and there Navarro’s daughter received the best mark of all, 17.25 points out of 19. Molanes received 13.25 points and Clemente, only 6.75, although the interview focused on building on the experience for which he was graded in the first part. In the end, María Navarro scored a total of 50.25 points, beating the 49.92 points of Clemente, the best-placed person in the first phase. One person involved in the process told this medium that it was a “simple” interview, asking what you did, what your experience was and what knowledge you have to aspire to such a position, everything very smoothly.
When contacted by EL PAÍS, both the Ministry of Culture through a spokesman and Inaem limited themselves to pointing out that “it is a public selection process that has gone through all the steps”. Pere Navarro, also asked by this newspaper, declined to comment.
The contract is for one year, renewable to three years, at a rate of 43,200 per year as it is outside of the agreement. The competent court was presided over by Jaime Guerra Carballo, director of marketing, advertising and sponsorship; Marina Albinyana, from the Corps of State Civil Administrators, as secretary, and Marina Muñoz, also from the Corps of State Civil Administrators, as members; Álvaro Granado from the Corps of Secondary School Teachers and Blanca María Sánchez from the Traffic Engineers Scale. It was a jury made up of professional civil servants from various ministries, in accordance with the law.
Pere Navarro Morera was first secretary of the PSC between 2011 and 2014, a position he achieved thanks to his experience as mayor of Terrassa, one of the largest cities in the metropolitan area. While taking the reins of the Catalan Socialists, Navarro had to deal with the internal tensions that erupted within the party following José Montilla’s tenure as President of the Generalitat. With Navarro at the helm, the PSC received just 20 MPs and 14% of the vote in 2012. In June 2014 he resigned.
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