The Diplomat
Cuba’s new Ambassador to Spain, Marcelino Medina González, took up his post in Madrid at the beginning of January, and last week presented his India’s new ambassador to Spain presents Copies of Letters of Credence at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the second Ambassadorial Introducer, Christian Celdrán.
While the time comes for him to present his Credentials to the King, the new ambassador has already carried out various activities, receiving the ambassadors of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, as well as leaders of the Communist Party of Spain, headed by its Secretary General, Enrique Santiago. He has also accompanied the Cuban Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos García Granda, who was in Spain for Fitur.
Marcelino Medina was appointed ambassador to Madrid at the end of November, when he was First Deputy Foreign Minister, a post he had held since 2009, after having held various posts in the Cuban foreign ministry, where he specialised in European affairs. Previously, he had been stationed in Germany, first in Bonn before the fall of the Wall and then, after the reunification of the country, in Berlin as ambassador from 2001 to 2005.
The post that Medina held until his appointment as ambassador was the second in the hierarchy of Cuban diplomacy, after the minister, Bruno Rodríguez, and, as such, he was in Spain on several occasions, the last, in an official capacity, in October 2018, presumably to prepare for the visit that the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, was to make to Havana a month later.
The new ambassador replaces Gustavo Machín, who returned to Havana last summer. Since then, the diplomatic representation has been headed by Eumelio Caballero, a veteran diplomat, whom the Cuban authorities sent to Madrid as Chargé d’Affaires.
Medina arrives in Spain several weeks after the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, received in his office in Madrid the playwright Yunior García, one of the main promoters of the Archipiélago Group, the driving force behind the frustrated ‘Civic March’ in Cuba on the 15th. One of the unresolved disputes is the Cuban regime’s refusal to return all the accreditations that were withdrawn from the journalists of the Efe news agency, despite the Spanish government’s complaint.
