The spokespersons for the left-wing groups in the Madrid City Council, Rita Maestre (Más Madrid) and María Reyes Maroto (PSOE), have relied on the verdict of the Cronistas de la Villa to ask that the people of Israel not be granted the highest honorary distinction of the capital. The group of experts, attached to the City Council, sent two reports to the Government of José Luis Martínez-Almeida in which they reject the awarding of this insignia, approved in a municipal plenary session in October at the request of Vox and with the votes of the PP, as announced on Thursday by the SER network. Constantino Mediavilla, one of the chroniclers, has detailed to EL PAÍS that the group considers that “this is not the time, nor is there any reason, to award the Medal of Honor to the people of Israel.”
This Thursday, Maestre supported the position of the chroniclers' association from the social network ”. Maestre sent a letter to the union in November, in which he asked for an impartial verdict, which was not conditioned by what he defined as pressure from the City Council, the institution in charge of appointing the chroniclers. “We will exercise all our opposition so that the Medal of Honor is not awarded to Israel,” Maestre insisted in X.
Along the same lines, Reyes Maroto this Thursday demanded that the mayor “be consistent with the report [de los cronistas]” and to reverse the awarding of the Medal of Honor to Israel, which he has called a “political decision.”
More than 20,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. More than 7,700 children murdered.
We will exercise all our opposition so that the Medal of Honor is not awarded to Israel.
The Villa Chroniclers reject the concession.
Madrid has to continue on the side of human rights. pic.twitter.com/UgXWHWPfyK
— Más Madrid City (@MasMadridCiudad) December 14, 2023
The panel of experts has invoked article 17 of the Regulation of Honorary Distinctions of the City Council, which defines the Medal of Honor as an “exceptional” recognition, reserved for “those natural or legal persons, national or foreign, who have stood out for their extraordinary personal merits and for having provided highly relevant services to the city of Madrid.” The union of journalists and historians concludes that the tribute to the Israeli people “does not comply with any of the requirements contemplated in the regulations,” in the words of Mediavilla.
Although the verdict of the chroniclers is not binding, in the past recognitions of this type have been reversed, such as Almeida's initiative to appoint the filmmaker Tim Burton as ambassador of Madrid, which was frustrated after the unfavorable opinion of the expert panel. Added to the Burton case is the rudeness of Mick Jagger – who preferred to go see Guernica, before becoming the capital's first ambassador -; the decoration to Israel could become the third frustrated honorific of the Almeida Administration.
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Some members of the Popular Party even raised expectations about the statement, such as the PP spokesperson in Madrid, Carlos Izquierdo, who asked during the plenary session on October 30 to “be aware of what the Cronistas de la Villa decide later.” Now, after learning of the report brought by the experts to the City Council, Izquierdo has refrained from making statements to EL PAÍS.
The only statement from the popular has come from the vice mayor, Inmaculada Sanz, who has limited herself to saying that “an analysis is being made of the argument that there [en el informe] is established.” The municipal government spokesperson has also taken the opportunity to reiterate her condemnation of what she calls the “savage terrorist attack” by Hamas in Israeli territory.
The initiative to decorate Israel, in the midst of the war against Hamas in Gaza, was approved on October 30, during a plenary session of the Municipal Board with the favorable votes of the PP and Vox and the rejection of Más Madrid and the PSOE. After the sentence of the Cronistas de la Villla, it is now the turn of the Department of Culture to issue a report that assesses and, if applicable, certifies that the requirements to grant this dignity are met.
The Cronistas de la Villa de Madrid is a guild with more than a century of history that It is mainly dedicated to issuing opinions, at the request of the Madrid City Council, related to the public activity of the city. Currently, it is made up of eight members who have been appointed by the City Council itself, including five journalists, two historians and the Institute of Madrid Studies.
The City Medal of Honor is the most prestigious honorary badge awarded by the capital. It is awarded every March 15, the day of San Isidro, and cannot be granted to more than three people a year. In 2023, the City Council awarded this insignia to the journalist Ana Rosa Quintana, the singer Alaska and Melchor Rodríguez García, mayor of Madrid during the Civil War. This medal is exclusively honorary in nature, that is, obtaining it does not provide any administrative, labor, economic or representation rights of Madrid.
Of the two reports sent to the City Council by the chroniclers, one is signed by five members, on behalf of the Institute of Madrid Studies: Pedro Montoliú, Antonio Castro, Constantino Mediavilla, Feliciano Barrios and María Teresa Fernández. The other report has been issued individually by Ruth Toledano, a member of the chroniclers' union, who in statements to the Efe agency has defined the decoration to Israel as an “absolute shame.”
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