The Diplomat
‘Marca España’ has been removed from the structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, EU and Cooperation, according to the new organisational chart of the department published yesterday in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
It was José Manuel García Margallo who, when he arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 2012, created the figure of the Government High Commissioner for Marca España with the task of proposing measures to improve our country’s image abroad.
The High Commissioner had the rank of Secretary of State and, although organically he reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, functionally he reported to the Prime Minister, then Mariano Rajoy. The first to occupy the post, which had to be approved by the Council of Ministers, was Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros.
With the arrival of the PSOE to the Government and with Josep Borrell at the head of Foreign Affairs, in October 2018 the designation was changed to ‘España Global’, creating a State Secretariat with that name, which was occupied by Irene Lozano.
After taking the reins at the Palace of Santa Cruz in January 2020, Arancha González Laya kept the España Global Secretariat and put Manuel Muñiz in charge of it.
Since then, the current minister, José Manuel Albares, had not revealed what would happen to ‘España Global’, which ceased to exist as a State Secretariat within Foreign Affairs when he opted to recover the now defunct State Secretariat for Ibero-America and the Caribbean.
In the Ministry’s new organisational chart, the directorates that depended on the State Secretariat for España Global have been transferred to other departments or have been abolished. This is the case of the Directorate General for Strategy, Foresight and Coherence, from which, with Manuel Muñiz, the drafting of the External Action Strategy was piloted.
As for the Directorate General for Communication, Public Diplomacy and Networks, which includes the Diplomatic Information Office (OID), and the Directorate General for Economic Diplomacy, both now report “directly to the head of the Ministry”.
On the other hand, on recovering the State Secretariat for Ibero-America, headed by Juan Fernández Trigo, Albares also added “y del Español en el Mundo” to its name. As a result, a specific directorate general for Spanish in the World has been created within this secretariat.
According to the BOE, its function will be to “ensure the coherence, within a common strategy, of the action of the different institutions responsible for defending Spanish in the world, without prejudice to the competences of the Ministry of Culture and Sport”.
It should also “contribute to the expansion and promotion of the presence of Spanish both in traditional areas and in the fields of technology and innovation”
