Spanish Councillor Under Fire for Using Face Mask to Conceal Lyp-Syncing to Flawless English

A councillor from a city in eastern Spain has sparked a response on social media after his minute-long speech in flawless, fluent English, devoid of any tell-tale Spanish accent, during Valencia’s bid to become the European Capital of Innovation 2020.

“Valencia and its people are very committed to European innovation and we are at your disposal,” Carlos Galiana told the European Commission at the end of his address on 24 September.

​The Spanish official had been conveniently wearing a face mask throughout his address, with only the movements of his mouth visible. However, it transpired that Galiana’s voice was not his own, and his speech had been dubbed by a native English speaker.

The move was dictated by necessity, said Valencia city council later, with sources quoted by online Spanish newspaper El Español as claiming that the commission had requested the mayor of the Spanish city to speak at the venue.

However, as the official had been in a meeting, the councillor for education, sport, culture and innovation Galiana was asked to save the day. Fortunately for him, the man was apparently also a trained actor.

As the council was loath to have an interpreter stand next to Galiana because of the commission’s instructions, which stated that “only the mayor or the councillor could appear,” dubbing the speech was deemed the best option.

On Friday Galiana went on Twitter to make a reference to the episode, writing that “sometimes the worst decisions make the best stories,” according to The Guardian.

The tweet triggered a backlash, with far from all social media users appreciative of the move.
Galiana later deleted the tweet.

Some netizens suggested the “embarrassing episode” was reminiscent of the Milli Vanilli scandal.

​Milli Vanilli, a German pop group, had won the best new artist Grammy award in February 1990, yet were embarrassingly revealed to be a lip-sync hoax during a televised live performance of their hit single Girl You Know It’s True in July 1989.

Users slammed the official for having “embarrassed the whole of Spain”.

As some comments were more sardonic, saying “Sign me up for English classes,” other netizens erupted in memes.

​Meanwhile, Leuven, Belgium, was named the 2020 European Capital of Innovation for its use of innovation to improve residents’ lives.