The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved the appointment of Manuel Lejarreta as the new ambassador to Angola, as reported by The Diplomat. Álvaro Renedo has been appointed Ambassador to Albania and Álvaro Iranzo, Ambassador-at-Large for the NATO Summit to be held in Spain at the end of June 2022.
Lejarreta will fill the vacancy left in Luanda by Manuel Hernández Ruigómez, appointed Consul General in Mexico City. Since 2015 he had been secretary general of the Spain-United States Council Foundation, after having been ambassador to Guatemala for the previous four years. A diplomat since 1987, he was also Deputy Director General for Continental Asia and Deputy Director General for Mercosur countries and Chile, in addition to having been posted to the Embassies in Equatorial Guinea, Chile, Indonesia and Argentina.
Álvaro Renedo, the new ambassador in Tirana, a post that had been vacant since the appointment of Marcos Alonso as Spain’s permanent representative ambassador to the EU last July, joined the diplomatic service in 2007 and has been consul general in Algiers since August 2020. Previously, he was director of the Department of European Affairs and G20 in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government and advisor in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for the European Union.
Meanwhile, Álvaro Iranzo has been appointed Ambassador-at-Large for the NATO Summit, days after the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced the creation of a coordination unit in his Cabinet for this event, which will bring together the heads of state and government of the allied countries in Madrid.
Iranzo has a long career as a diplomat, having served as Spanish ambassador to Angola (1997-2001), Malaysia (2001-2003), Israel (2008-2012) and Saudi Arabia (2017-2021). He was also Director General for the Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa and Deputy Director General for North Africa, and has also been posted to Gabon, Mozambique, Algeria and Australia, in the latter country as Consul General in Sydney.
Spanish nationality for seven people
The Council of Ministers also granted Spanish nationality to seven people, including the Brazilian writer and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, Nélida Piñón, and the Mexican journalist and social activist, Lydia María Cacho, who resides with temporary authorisation in Spain, where she arrived after having been the victim of torture and death threats for her investigations into gender violence, health, children and organised crime in Mexico.
Spanish nationality has also been granted to the Argentinian playwright and actor, Óscar Martínez, who is a member of the Royal Spanish Academy; and to the British journalist and Hispanist, William D. Chislett, senior researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute, who was a correspondent for The Times during the Transition and for many years has played an important role in defending and promoting Spain abroad, gaining international recognition as a Hispanist.
Also on the list are the chess player of Georgian origin, Ana Matnadze; Fraidelyn Padua, daughter of a woman murdered by her partner in our country; and Dounia el Ghorfi, of Moroccan origin, victim of a case of family abandonment and domestic abuse, in a vulnerable situation.
