The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday appointed José Pascual Marco as ambassador to the United Kingdom, thus filling the vacancy left almost seven months ago by the departure of Carlos Bastarreche after he reached retirement age.
This brings to a close a period in which the delay of the previous Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, in making a decision, left the diplomatic representation in London without an ambassador, at a particularly sensitive time, after Brexit.
The arrival of José Manuel Albares at the Palace of Santa Cruz unblocked the situation and the minister himself commented, after a visit to his British counterpart, Dominic Raab, on 22 July, that the request for a new ambassador had been delivered.
As The Diplomat reported, the new ambassador was José Pascual Marco, who currently holds the post of director general for Integration and Coordination of General Affairs of the European Union. In this post, he has been one of the main people in charge of negotiating the pre-agreement sealed between Spain and the UK on Gibraltar on 31 December, which should lay the foundations for the future agreement between the EU and London on the Rock.
A diplomat since 1983, many of his posts have been related to the EU, both in Madrid and in Brussels, where he was Spain’s deputy permanent representative for five years, although he was also ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, ‘number two’ at the Embassy in Washington and consul general in Melbourne, among other posts.
The government yesterday also appointed Raquel Gómez-Cambronero as director general for Western, Central and Southeast Europe, replacing Victoria González Román, whose name has been mentioned as a possible ambassador to Greece, one of the vacancies that Albares will soon have to fill.
Raquel Gómez Cambronero has been a diplomat since 2001 and was in charge of the sub-directorate general for EU countries from August 2018 until April this year, when she was appointed director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Science, Pedro Duque, although she could only stay in the post until July, when the Government was reshuffled and Duque was dismissed.
She has been posted to the embassies in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Kingdom and Cuba, and has been advisor for Ibero-America in the Cabinet for International and Security Affairs of the Presidency of the Government.
The Council of Ministers also appointed Ángel Losada as the new ambassador to Iran, as reported by The Diplomat. Losada, a diplomat since 1984, was until recently the EU’s special envoy for the Sahel. He has also been ambassador to Nigeria and Kuwait and ambassador on special mission in the command structure of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) in 2004.
Cristina Díaz Fernández-Gil has been appointed Ambassador to Kenya. She was Director General for Cooperation with Asia and Africa and entered the diplomatic service in 1991. She has also been ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal.
The Council of Ministers also appointed Antonio González-Zavala as ambassador to Guinea-Bissau. He has been a diplomat since 2002 and was consul general in Lagos, Quito, and Algiers, and has held second posts in the embassies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Senegal. For some time he was assigned to the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID), where he drafted the basic text for the 2003 Basic Cooperation Agreement with Guinea-Bissau.
Finally, the Council of Ministers appointed Cristóbal Valdés y Valentín-Gamazo as the new permanent representative ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who will fill the vacancy left by Luis Cuesta, following his appointment as undersecretary of Foreign Affairs. He entered the diplomatic service in 1987 and has been Director General for Spaniards Abroad and for Consular and Migratory Affairs, as well as permanent observer ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS).
