The Diplomat
The diplomat Juan Pablo de Laiglesia, who was, at different times in his career, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Ibero-America, died yesterday in Madrid at the age of 73, victim of cancer.
De Laiglesia entered the diplomatic career in 1973 and assumed his last responsibility in June 2018, when he was only a few months away from retirement. With the arrival of Pedro Sánchez at La Moncloa and Josep Borrell at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was appointed State Secretary for International Cooperation and for Ibero-America and the Caribbean. He remained in that post until February 2020, shortly after Arancha González Laya arrived at the Palace of Santa Cruz.
Juan Pablo de Laiglesia’s professional career has been closely linked to Ibero-American affairs and Cooperation. In fact, in 2004 he was appointed Secretary General of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, and in 2008 he was the first director of the renamed Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
In April 2009, under the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, he was appointed State Secretary for Ibero-America, and a year later he also assumed responsibility for other areas of the world, with the creation of the State Secretariat for Foreign and Ibero-American Affairs.
In the Ibero-American sphere, Juan Pablo de Laiglesia had previously served as Director General of Foreign Policy for Ibero-America in 1985, as well as Ambassador to Guatemala from 1988 to 1992 and to Mexico from 1992 to 1995.
He was also Ambassador to Poland from 1998 to 2003 and Ambassador Permanent Representative of Spain to the UN in New York from 2010 to 2012.
Throughout his long career, he has also held other posts such as ambassador on special mission for peacekeeping operations.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, expressed, on their Twitter accounts, their sorrow at the death of Juan Pablo de Laiglesia, whom they described as a brilliant diplomat and great public servant.
Also on Twitter, the current State Secretary for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela, expressed her condolences and said: “Spanish Cooperation is grateful for his wise look and his work in favour of those most in need”, adding that his “mark will always remain in our Cooperation”.
The AECID also mourned the death of De Laiglesia, whom it described as “a great diplomat and public servant”, underlining that, while he headed the agency, “he championed the fight against poverty and sustainable development”.
The current State Secretary for Ibero-America, Juan Fernández-Trigo, also expressed his sorrow at the death of De Laiglesia, whom he said was, to a large extent, the architect of a renewed strategy towards Ibero-America in democratic Spain.
For its part, the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE) regretted the death of Juan Pablo de La Iglesia, which joins the deaths last week of other retired diplomats: Estanislao de Grandes and Fernando de La Serna.
