Luis Ayllón
The conflict between diplomats and trade unions with representation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs resulted yesterday in a cross of accusations on account of the claim of UGT and CSIF to be represented on the Board of the Diplomatic Career.
In a statement, the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE), which groups 70% of the officials of the Career and is chaired by Jorge Hevia, denounces that some unions have lashed out against the said Board “with banal and unfounded arguments that reveal an erroneous understanding of the nature, composition and functions of a body that is regulated in the R.D. 674/1993, of May 7, on the provision of posts abroad and promotions of officials of the Diplomatic Career.”
“With a derogatory and demagogic language -the communiqué underlines-, this body has been disqualified as antidemocratic, obscurantist, Francoist, arbitrary and conducive to secrecy”.
“At the same time, and as if this were the solution to such imagined evils, these unions are trying to gain access to the Board, probably with the healthy desire to “reform” it, to try to manipulate it at their convenience and turn a professional, technical and politically neutral body into a possible field of confrontation and political activism”, denounces the ADE.
The Association recalls that the Board of the Diplomatic Career is the advisory body of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, in matters of promotions and provision of posts abroad. It also emphasizes that it is composed, in addition to various positions of the Ministry itself with competence in personnel matters -starting with the head of the Undersecretariat-, by representatives of all categories of the Diplomatic Career elected by democratic vote for periods of two years and that it makes its decisions by simple majority, when consensus is not achieved.
The ADE defends the existence of the Board, stressing that it is “an innovation in the Spanish Public Administrations as a whole, in that it gives all the civil servants who belong to this career a free, equal and democratic representative body to assert their preferences and priorities in such an important aspect in the development of their professional career as are the destinations”.
“It is a body,” he says, “that has amply demonstrated its usefulness for many years, while it is widely valued by all members of the Diplomatic Career, as well as by the various directorates of the Ministry under different governments.
For all these reasons, the ADE rejects what it considers “derogatory statements regarding this Board that are often extended to the Diplomatic Career, and expresses its “opposition to pressure and to any attempt to articulate any union presence in the Board of the Diplomatic Career”.
After indicating its support for the Ministry’s Management in the face of such pressures, the Association expressed its support for “the Regulations of the Diplomatic Career, now in process, to maintain the nature, composition and functions of said body, without distorting its essence”.
The considerations of the ADE were immediately replied by the UGT, which, through the internal mail of the Ministry, described the communiqué as “a clear example of Francoist ideology defending corporate representations and criticizing the legitimate right of the unions”, which they believe is granted to them by the Constitution, to form part of the Board.
Further on, they assure that the vast majority of the people working in the Ministry “are grateful for the relentless fight against abuses, mistreatment, nepotism, defenselessness, bad practices of many who deny the Trade Union Organizations and that ADE ignores”.
Finally, they add that ADE “ignores that it is the Trade Union Organizations that negotiate in all the Administration with the exception of this Ministry”.
