The Business Institute, the private university to which the IE Africa Center belongs – which was directed by Begoña Gómez, the wife of the President of the Government – denies that this center, nor the IE nor its foundation received money from Globalia – the parent company of the airline Air Europa—nor its subsidiary Wakalua, a hub global innovation in tourism. The IE confronts, without explicitly citing them, publications such as that of The confidential, which the digital titled “Air Europa agreed to pay 40,000 euros per year to Begoña Gómez’s Africa Center before the rescue”, to emphasize that the African center did not receive any financial amount under a collaboration agreement signed in January 2020, months before of the public rescue of Air Europa, which took place in November of the same year.
According to IE in a statement, in January 2020, IE Africa Center, dedicated to innovation on the African continent, signed a collaboration agreement with Wakalua “for the celebration of various events related to innovation in the tourism sector.” Of these events, the university reports, the first was held in London and the hub tourism contributed to its celebration “with a contribution of four plane tickets with the speakers that were managed directly with the interested parties.”
With the arrival of the pandemic in Spain and the declaration of the state of alarm, the agreement was interrupted. “It was never carried out due to the circumstances of the moment,” the IE points out in its note, in which it specifies that later, with the normalization of the health situation and the end of the restrictions derived from the coronavirus pandemic, it was not resumed either. the collaborations. Since then, the IE specifies, the university “has had no further contact nor has it developed projects of any kind with these institutions.”
EI frames the agreement as part of initiatives to promote “education, entrepreneurship and innovation.”
Begoña López was appointed director of the Africa Center of the IE University, of the Instituto de Empresa group from 2018, when the center began its operation, to 2022. The purpose of the organization is to develop projects on the African continent and give projection to innovation, executive leadership, entrepreneurship and the development of social action projects on the continent, the IE reported months before its inauguration.
In November 2020, the airline Air Europa received an injection, in two participatory loans, of 475 million approved by the Government and which it has not yet returned. The approval of public aid to the Hidalgo family company followed the same channels as other airline companies urgently rescued in the middle of the pandemic.
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