The Diplomat
The Spanish Government plans to open ‘diplomatic antennae’ in Belarus, Armenia and Uzbekistan, three countries of the former Soviet Union, whose relations with Spain are currently conducted from the Embassy in Moscow.
The project appears in the Foreign Action Strategy 2021-2024 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent to the parliamentary groups, but without specifying when the opening could be carried out.
Diplomatic sources remind that the moment to create these ‘diplomatic antennas’ depends, to a great extent, on the budgetary availabilities.
The Government’s objective is for Spain to have a more active presence, from the political and economic point of view, in the countries that broke away from the former Soviet Union.
Spain already has ‘diplomatic antennae’ in two of these countries, Azerbaijan and Georgia, where a chargé d’affaires ad interim resides, depending on our Embassy in Turkey.
The desire is to extend this model to Uzbekistan, which is one of the most important states in Central Asia; Belarus, a country located between Russia and Europe and where there is currently great instability; and Armenia, which has just experienced a war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Currently, one of the members of the Spanish Embassy in Moscow is in charge of monitoring relations with these three republics more closely. The creation of ‘diplomatic antennae’ would entail the appointment of a person in charge ad interim and the establishment of a headquarters for the Spanish representation, which would facilitate contact with the local authorities.
Uzbekistan, Belarus and Armenia have open embassies in Madrid, as do Azerbaijan and Georgia. All of them have long been asking Spain to do the same in their respective capitals, something that other European countries have done.
