The minister during his speech and the new officials./ Photo: Foreign Ministry/Nacho Gómez
Eduardo González. 26/01/2017
The Foreign Minister, Alfonso Dastis, presided over the investiture of the secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ildefonso Castro, the technical secretary general of the ministry, Beatriz Larrotcha, and the director general of Media and Public Diplomacy, Ana María Rodríguez.
The event took place at the headquarters of Torres Ágora, “which, whether we like it or not, is the place where most of the Ministry’s employees work”, affirmed Dastis before those present, among them the director of Office of the President of the Government, Jorge Moragas, the secretary of State for Communication, Carmen Martínez Castro, the secretary of State for the European Union, Jorge Toledo, and the secretary of State for International Cooperation and Ibero-America, Fernando García Casas.
“It is a functional workplace to which we will have to get used to as long as the awaited return to the Marqués de Salamanca Palace does not take place”, the minister continued regarding Torres Ágora. “I have made a small office, I will not say on which floor, and I have the intention of coming here at least once a week”, he announced in between the laughs of those present.
The minister presided over the investiture of Ildefonso Castro, Beatriz Larrotcha and Ana María Rodríguez
The minister also admitted that, “with the last appointments, the disembarkation of Moncloa in the Foreign Ministry has already taken place”, referring to the secretaries of State that have been appointed since he took up his position, Castro, Toledo and García Casas, the three of them with a past in the Presidency of the Government.
“Formally it is like that, but I am going to change the argument and also think that the Foreign Ministry has appropriated Moncloa, that the experience of those who have worked there will have a significant weight in the elaboration of the foreign policy”, he pointed out.
Regarding that, Ildefonso Castro referred to his previous stages in Moncloa, in which he could coincide with the other two secretaries of State of the Ministry, and he affirmed that the period in which he worked for the president of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, were “the best professional years of my life”.
“Being in Moncloa has given me a complete view of things and has helped me reaffirm that there is always a storm and bad weather outside, that we travel in a good ship called Spain and, in order to come through safely, we must row together at the pace set by the president of the Government”, Ildefonso Castro declared.
Besides, the new secretary of State used his speech to praise his predecessor, Ignacio Ybáñez, present at the event: “I have set the bar very high, but I am going to benefit from their work”, he stated.
