Luis Ayllón
Diplomat Victorio Redondo Baldrich will be the new ambassador to Paris, after the government has requested the French authorities’ approval for his appointment, according to The Diplomat, according to reliable sources.
Victorio Redondo will fill the vacancy left in France by José Manuel Albares himself when he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs on 10 July in Pedro Sánchez’s government reshuffle.
The same sources indicated that Marcos Gómez Martínez would be the person chosen by Albares to head the Embassy in Moscow, after the Government decided to withdraw the request for the post made by the previous head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, for her former Chief of Cabinet, Camilo Villarino, who is currently under investigation in the case opened by a judge in Zaragoza in relation to the entry into Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali.
Both Redondo and Gómez are diplomats with extensive professional experience, as well as people of Albares’ full confidence, and currently occupy Spanish embassies, where they have been working for less than a year.
Specifically, Victorio Redondo has been ambassador to Switzerland since the end of September 2020 and, between 2018 and the beginning of 2020, he was director general of Foreign Affairs and Global Security in the Cabinet of the President of the Government, under the orders of José Manuel Albares, who was then in charge of the General Secretariat for International Affairs, European Union, G20 and Global Security.
From 2013 to 2018, he was Deputy Permanent Representative Ambassador to the Office of the United Nations and International Organisations in Geneva. Prior to that, from 2004 to 2011 he was advisor for European and EU affairs to the then Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
A diplomat since 1991, he took part in the negotiations on the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and for the formation of the European administration in Mostar, and was subsequently Counsellor for Political Affairs at the Spanish Embassy in Russia. From 2000 to 2004, he was Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU in Brussels and representative in the enlargement negotiations with ten new member states.
Marcos Gómez, for his part, took charge of the Spanish Embassy in Colombia in December last year, after having been, since July 2018, Director General of the United Nations, International Organisations and Human Rights.
Gómez Martínez entered the Diplomatic Career in 1990, at number one in his promotion, and one of his first destinations was the Embassy in Moscow, where he stayed between 1993 and 1996, and where he was able to practise the Russian language.
This knowledge of the language is one of the factors that would have led Albares to choose him to represent Spain in the Russian Federation, as the minister argued, when explaining the withdrawal of Villarino’s request for his approval, that he wants to appoint people to the posts of head of mission who have the most appropriate professional background and knowledge possible for these posts.
Marcos Gómez was also posted to Moncloa as an advisor to Zapatero between 2004 and 2007 and was appointed ambassador to New Zealand, where he remained until 2011. Subsequently, he was ambassador-at-large for Polar Spaces and Oceanic Affairs, until his appointment as deputy consul general in London, first, and then consul general in Canton. He has also been posted to Buenos Aires and to the Permanent Representation of Spain to the UN and International Organisations in Geneva.
