The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, yesterday promised the diplomatic trade unions and associations that she would present a document this week explaining how the vaccination process against COVID-19 will be carried out for Foreign Service personnel and to vaccinate all those who travel to Spain.
González Laya, accompanied by the under-secretary of her department, Celsa Nuño, and the director general of the Foreign Service, Álvaro Kirpatrik, made time in the middle of a day marked by the crisis with Morocco, to receive the trade union representatives, who have been demanding measures so that workers posted abroad or who are going to be posted to another country can be vaccinated. The demands increased after two such workers died last Sunday, in India and Ecuador.
Gonzalez Laya apparently assured that all Foreign Service personnel passing through Spain in the near future will be vaccinated, including those who have been called for vaccination in advance and have not been able to attend.
A spokesperson for the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE) said he was “moderately satisfied” with the meeting and valued the minister’s commitment to soon make them aware of the document, which will include specific solutions for those countries where it is more difficult to access vaccination.
The UGT, for its part, said that it “values the meeting very positively” and stressed that the minister repeated the commitment to vaccination on four occasions.
CSIF was less satisfied, and although it is grateful for all the efforts being made, it believes that not all its demands have been met, according to a spokesperson for the union, who considered the minister’s announcement to be “insufficient”.
The spokesman said that the announcement “does not resolve the uncertainty of thousands of public employees who already need health protection and who feel abandoned”. In particular, he indicated that there is “no solution for those who cannot move to Spain” and warned that the vaccination of these staff should not be delayed beyond June.
She also stressed that the offer is still pending an agreement with the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs, bearing in mind that there would be cases, for example, under the age of 50, in which vaccination would be brought forward depending on the age brackets that are currently being immunised in Spain.
Last week, González Laya had explained that since vaccination began in Spain, what the government proposed in order to be able to vaccinate staff abroad was reciprocity with the destination countries: they would vaccinate Spanish civil servants and Spain would vaccinate its own. According to him, more than 50 countries had agreed.
However, he acknowledged that there were some countries “with specific difficulties” for which he said the Ministry was “looking for specific solutions with the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities”. “In some cases, the arrival of officials in Spain will be facilitated” for vaccination and in others “we will seek to bring the vaccine closer to these third countries”, he said.
