Antonio Onetti is the new president of the General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE), after a vote by its board of directors that this Thursday has held an extraordinary call. Of the 35 board members, 21 have supported Onetti, while there have been eight abstentions and six votes against.

Antonio Onetti explained that his main objective is "to restore confidence in the proper functioning of the SGAE's governing bodies, with absolute professionalism in management, transparency and efficiency, to call elections for the Board of Directors and the new body as soon as possible supervision, and overcome the economic consequences caused by the pandemic with the maximum support for the authors and the lowest possible cost for the entity, "the company said in a statement.

On the agenda of the new president there are several serious problems to be resolved urgently. In May of last year, the international body that brings together all the management entities (the International Confederation of Authors, CISAC) expelled the SGAE for a year. On the other hand, the entity, which has been installed in instability for a decade, maintains a tense relationship with the Ministry of Culture and Sports, which has issued several requests over the last year and has even judicially requested the entity's intervention.

Precisely both problems are the roadmap set by Onetti in his first words. "It is essential to emphasize collaboration with the cultural institutions on which the SGAE depends: the Ministry of Culture, the supervisory body of our society, and CISAC. Cooperation, dialogue and scrupulous compliance with all of its requirements must define our immediate roadmap to normalize the life of the entity, "said the statement.

Born in Seville in 1962, Onetti (Seville, 1962) has worked for three decades as a playwright and screenwriter for cinema and especially television . Graduated in Dramatic Art from the Royal Higher School of Dramatic Art in Madrid, he has also been a professor. Nominated for the Max Theater Award in 2005 for the adaptation of Solas , he has been a screenwriter for series such as Father Courage (2002), 11-M. Memory of an attack (2005), Loving in troubled times (between 2005 and 2012), Loving is forever (between 2013 and 2015) and The Cathedral of the Sea (2016)

The 44th President replaces Fermín Cabal, who has held the position on an interim basis after Pilar Jurado was dismissed on April 15. The soprano and conductor lost the presidency at an extraordinary meeting in which a motion of no confidence was voted. Of the 35 members of the board, 22 voted against the Jury, a forceful result that ended a presidency of only 14 months.

Opponents of the Jury raised the censure motion accusing it of lack of transparency and despotism . The trigger for this discontent was two appointments approved on April 2 by the SGAE board of directors that were not consulted with said board of directors. They were those of Clifton Jerome Williams López as deputy director general of the entity and Enrique Soria García-Ramos as financial economic director.

These appointments also caused the discomfort of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, which asked the management company for explanations in a request in which the entity was reminded that it could "neither modify its organization chart, nor hire new management personnel until it receives different indication of this Ministry ".

Last year and during the term of the Jury, the Ministry led by José Guirao judicially requested the intervention of the entity, a position held by José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes , who came to office in January.

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  • SGAE
  • music
  • culture
  • José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes

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