Luis Ayllón
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has finally swapped the diplomats chosen by his predecessor, Arancha González Laya, to take charge of the Spanish embassies in South Africa and Thailand, according to The Diplomt, according to reliable sources.
Thus, the government has requested Thailand’s approval to appoint Felipe de la Morena, who was initially going to be the head of the mission in South Africa, as ambassador in Bangkok. At the same time, it has asked for the plácet to appoint Raimundo Robredo as ambassador to Pretoria, whose destination was to be Thailand, as The Diplomat has already reported.
After arriving at the Palace of Santa Cruz, in an unusual move in the change of ministers within a government of the same colour, Albares decided to withdraw three requests for plácets: those made to South Africa and Thailand, for De la Morena and Robredo, and the one sent to the Russian Federation for Camilo Villarino, former chief of staff of González Laya, who has been charged in the “Ghali case”.
Albares’ entourage justified the decision on the grounds that the embassies should be headed by the people best suited to the posts, in terms of their professional background, knowledge, etc. The new doctrine caused some concern among the diplomats for whom approval had already been requested from the different countries, but, to date, no changes other than those mentioned above have taken place.
Based on this approach, the minister decided to send Raimundo Robredo to South Africa, director general for Africa since July 2017, who was already stationed in Pretoria years ago, as well as having been “number two” at the Spanish embassy in Senegal.
Felipe de la Morena, who has a long career as a diplomat, does not, however, have experience in Asian posts. On the contrary, he has been ambassador to Malta and has been posted to Poland, the United States, Ecuador and the permanent representation to the EU. Likewise, in his first years of professional practice he was director of Economic Relations with Africa and the Middle East and was at the embassy in Kinshasa.
For Russia, as The Diplomat has already advanced, the person chosen is Marcos Gómez, who had been ambassador to Colombia for a few months, speaks Russian and was previously posted to the embassy in Moscow.
On the other hand, Albares has on his agenda to fill the vacancies that remain at the heads of some embassies as a result of the appointments he has made to his team.
In addition to the embassy in Bogotá, which will be vacated by Marcos Gómez when Russia grants him the green light, the embassy in Chile is without an ambassador, following the appointment of Enrique Ojeda to head Casa América; the embassy in Sudan, whose head, Alberto Ucelay, was appointed director general for the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Maghreb; and the embassy in Albania, following the appointment of Marcos Alonso as permanent representative to the EU; and France, where the minister himself was present, although in this case, as The Diplomat reported, Victorio Redondo has already been asked to be appointed. Redondo, in turn, would leave the embassy in Switzerland vacant.
In addition, there are the four embassies that had been put out to tender and were not filled by González Laya: Greece, Lebanon, Jordan and Gabon. In all of them, the current ambassadors will remain in place for the time being.
