Optimistic, conscientious and a boiling factory of ideas, this is how Domingo Jiménez Beltrán, who died on February 7, was defined yesterday at a tribute ceremony held at his home in Águilas and coinciding with his 79th birthday. To the meeting that his widow, Elin, his son, Spen, and his brothers, Javier, Santiago and Enrique, organized to remember Domingo, “half of Norway” attended, Elin affectionately said in reference to brothers, nephews and a good representation of the nordic family.
On a sunny afternoon in which the sun shone as it always did in the daily life of the first director of the European Environment Agency and one of the pioneers in renewable energy, Spen recalled that for his father it would have been an “impressive meeting, because for him things were not good or regular, they were always impressive.”
The family, the fifty friends of childhood and youth and all kinds of professionals related to the environment, agroecology and renewable energies with whom he was linked by some ties agreed to highlight his unwavering commitment to everything that contributed to the sustainability of the planet and his tireless effort to make this world a better place. Consistent from beginning to end – “he taught what he believed and practiced what he taught”, assured his son and those who intervened agreed – Domingo Jiménez Beltrán left “homework” to all those present, among whom was, in a personal capacity, the Minister of the Environment, Teresa Ribera. “The last time he sent me a message, on January 17, he told me not to get lost, that during the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU we had to achieve a common European climate change and energy policy.”
For Ribera, who met Domingo Jiménez in the year 2000 and was linked by a previous relationship through his father, ‘El Boti’ “marked the lives of several generations, inside and outside our borders. We must be aware of how difficult it was for a Spaniard to have a predicament in environmental policies within the European framework, coming from a developmentalist Spain. And he managed to earn respect in the institutions and, as founding director of the European Environment Agency, he knew how to define the criteria »to know in order to find solutions and progress.
In fact, Ribera conveyed to the family the condolences that numerous European representatives from all countries have sent him, and from “wherever he went”, since his death. “He has been an emblematic figure who has marked us all.”
Adoptive Son of Águilas
During the tribute, truffled from the jars of jam that Domingo produced and from the mead from Chuecos that he did not get to taste, the Councilor for the Environment of Águilas, Ginés D. Navarro, presented Elin with the motion, approved in the last Plenary session, in which he was named Adoptive Son of Águilas, the land that had been his for two decades and that hosts his last dream, the one that germinated in the Castillo de Chuecos Foundation.
Precisely to guarantee the future of this project, an agroecological laboratory for resilience in the face of climate change, those present conspired in the wake of Domingo and under his motto: “If it were easy, everyone would do it” because “there is so much to gain…”.
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