The Minister of Defense presides over the reopening of the Naval Museum.

The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, inaugurated today the new Naval Museum in Madrid, a first-rate example of the Navy's efforts to disseminate the great milestones and figures of the Spanish naval history, and promote defense culture among the general public.

The Minister congratulated the Spanish Navy for this project and pointed out that this new museum ‘is the best manifestation of what we want Spain to be, of what Spain is, a country with solid values, that fights for what it believes in, and is capable of the greatest sacrifices and heroic accomplishments’.

‘The Spanish Navy, like the other three Services, represents above all values, heroism, and commitment to Spain’. Minister Robles also stressed the importance that ‘all these endeavors can be expressed in museums’, and that all citizens can find in these spaces, a place of ‘meeting with history and with oneself’.

For its part, the Chief of Staff of the Spanish Navy, Admiral General López Calderón, stressed that ‘the purpose of the new arrangement of the museum is to teach the history of the Navy and the history of Spain written in and from the Navy’.

The remodeling of the Naval Museum has required more than two years of work and has focused mainly on improving access to the facilities, the redistribution of spaces and the reorganization and conservation of the collections.

The new project has reorganized the route of the permanent exhibition to transmit its contents to the public in a clearer way.

HISTORICAL BALANCE

In this sense, the director of the Naval Museum, Vice Admiral Marcial Gamboa, explained that the new exhibition ‘intends a journey through naval history in a balanced way, highlighting both the victories and defeats of the Spanish Navy’.

The reopening ceremony was also attended by the Secretary of State for Defense, Esperanza Casteleiro; the Chief of Defense Staff, Air Force General Miguel Ángel Villarroya; the Undersecretary of Defense, María Amparo Valcarce, and the Secretary General of Defense Policy, Admiral (R) Juan Francisco Martínez Nuñez, among other civilian and military authorities.