The Catholic University of Murcia celebrated yesterday the official Opening Ceremony of the 2015/16 academic year. The secretary of State for Justice, Carmen Sánchez-Cortés, imparted the inaugural lecture entitled 'Reforms for a necessary change'. During her speech, she developed the main lines of the National Reforms Programme conducted by the Government of Spain in recent years. “At the epicentre of the most brutal crises ever suffered in generations, doing ravages in every spheres of our life, we took the reins of a literally catatonic country” she affirmed. She further stressed that thanks Justice reforms they carried out, “we have made of juridical security an added value for the Spanish Brand, whose prestige is growing every day, and it has been so because we reformed three key elements: management, laws and a relentless fight against corruption”.

The ceremony began with the Eucharist, presided by the Cardinal Archbishop of Valencia, Monsignor Antonio Cañizares, and co-celebrated with José Manuel Lorca Planes, Bishop of the Diocese of Cartagena; Manuel Ureña, Emeritus Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Zaragoza and Rafael Palero, Emeritus Bishop of the Diocese of Orihuela-Alicante.

In the academic ceremony intervened José Luis Mendoza, UCAM’s president; Pedro Antonio Sánchez, the president of the Community of Murcia; the Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, Archbishop of Valencia; Monsignor José Manuel Lorca Planes, Bishop of the Diocese of Cartagena, and Josefina García Lozano, rector of the University. Antonio Sánchez-Solís, Government delegate; María Isabel Sánchez-Mora, Minister of Education and Universities; Rosa Peñalver Pérez, president of the Regional Assembly and Silvero Nieta, director of the legal service of the Episcopal Conference of Spain, also attended the event.

Well being state

Carmen Sánchez-Cortés Martín centred the first part of her intervention on decision-making, bringing to light the many factors that are part of it and that “they incline the scales of our determinations in one way or another”; she further added that the decision-making process is in the human condition in itself.

As far as the results of the reforms implemented by the Government are concerned, in subjects related to the labour market, the secretary of State for Justice indicated that if 600.000 jobs were destroyed per year in 2011, there were almost 540.000 jobs created in 2015. “For the first time, we went own 5 millions of unemployed, which is not much to be happy about, but it is still an indicator that we are on the right track”, she ensured. On the financial front, Sanchéz-Cortés insisted that Spain grows above 3% and that “the IMF puts us at the forefront of growth in advanced countries”.

Trust - Politic security

“The more secure a country is in legal terms, the greater is its potential to compete, to draw investment, to stimulate entrepreneurship. The trust and legal security are two inseparable factors”, affirmed Carman Sánchez-Cortés who gave as example the case of Cataluña. “While the credit rating agency Fitch has confirmed the good prospects for Spain, another agency, Moody’s, downgraded the credit perspective of Cataluña, putting it in the high-yield debt.

Another issue she talked about during her intervention was corruption, and she listed some of the actions developed by Spain to face a practice “repelling everyone”. Among them, she reminded the Transparency Law, or the fact that a public officer convicted of a corruption offense can’t go on electoral lists in the duration of his sentence.

Train the best, better

The secretary of State for Justice finished her lecture congratulating UCAM for the fact that “it is more than just an inaugural ceremony” and symbolizes the commitment of the Catholic University of Murcia “to continue making quality and excellence an own label”.

José Luis Mendoza ensured that the institution he represents, which this year overcame the 17 thousands students, will continue, as it has done so far, to struggle “with the same drive and faith” to provide an education of excellence, to support research and generate talents, to encourage the creation of quality jobs; “ultimately, to create wealth for our society, and to invest all our resources in it”. As far as research is concerned, he ensured that a university that doesn’t invest in research becomes a teaching academy, and he indicated UCAM invested more than 11 millions in 2014, and close to 15 this year. Moreover, Mendoza announced the creation of a pavilion of more than 15 thousands square meters “where will be the new UCAM Sports Centre, a dental clinic, new classrooms and a virtual hospital of 2.000 square meters”. Likewise, he reminded the constant difficulties the institution is suffering to develop its work, “from those who have an interest in our initiatives not to go forward”. On the same subject, Josefina García Lozano, detailed the advances the institution achieved: amelioration of the education offer; the support to entrepreneurship through the ITM (Technological Institute of Murcia); renovation of the accreditation through ANECA; or the increase of international students. She also took the opportunity to clarify that “there is no reason” to generate conflict related to the practices of Med students in public hospitals of the Region.

For his part, the president of the Community, Pedro Antonio Sánchez, highlighted to importance of a regional university system in the construction of society. “The universities have to be reaffirmed at the forefront of society; their work is essential to create a critical society from values such as responsibility and truth, as this young university is doing”, he ensured.