Luis Ayllón
Alberto Navarro, currently the European Union’s delegate to Cuba, may become Spain’s new Consul General in Boston this summer, if the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, accepts the proposal made by the Board of the Diplomatic Career, according to The Diplomat.
Navarro recently provoked the displeasure of a large number of MEPs, including several from the Popular Party, who called on Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, to dismiss him as EU ambassador to Havana, after he signed a letter asking the new US president, Joe Biden, to lift the embargo against Cuba.
In addition to signing the letter – along with 300 other people, including journalists, jurists, intellectuals and artists – Navarro subsequently made statements to the independent newspaper Cubanet, in which he stated that he did not consider Cuba to be a dictatorship.
Borrell summoned Navarro to Brussels and, after listening to his explanations, decided to keep him in his post, although he indicated, in a letter addressed to MEPs, that the European representative had accepted that he was mistaken in his comments and that he deeply regretted his answer to the question of whether Cuba could be considered a dictatorship.
Borrell’s decision was influenced by the fact that Navarro has only a few months left to complete his stay in Havana as an EU delegate and also that, as a Spanish diplomat, he had taken part in the Foreign Ministry’s competition for posts abroad.
In that competition, known in diplomatic jargon as ‘el Bombo’, Alberto Navarro applied for the post of Consul General in Boston, among other posts. The Diplomatic Career Board, which proposes appointments to the minister, awarded him the consulate in Boston, taking into account his professional category and experience.
It will now be González Laya who, normally, will have to ratify the choice before the 20th of August, in order for him to be posted to the US city in August.
Alberto Navarro, aged 66, has a long professional career in various posts, representing Spain and the European Union. He was State Secretary for the EU in the first government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, between 2004 and 2008, and subsequently ambassador to Portugal until 2010, when he was appointed ambassador to Morocco, where he remained until 2013.
With the European Union, he has been, among other things, ambassador to Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
