The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday appointed Juan González-Barba, who was dismissed a few months ago from the post of State Secretary for the European Union because of his serious disagreements with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, as The Diplomat had already advanced.
Juan González-Barba entered the Diplomatic Career in 1991. He was posted to the embassies in South Africa, Greece and Israel, where he was second in command, and to the Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels. He was also ambassador to Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea (in these two cases, based in Khartoum) and Turkey, as well as non-resident ambassador to Georgia and Azerbaijan. At the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, González-Barba held the positions of deputy director general of Foreign Cultural Action, advisory member in the Cabinet of the Secretary General for the EU, director general for the Maghreb, Mediterranean and Middle East; representative of Spain in the International Syria Support Group and advisory member in the Analysis and Forecasting Office.
Juan González-Barba was State Secretary for the European Union from February 4, 2020 until December 21, 2021, when he was dismissed because of his differences with Albares, who wished to have greater control over his activity.
Faced with these discrepancies, González-Barba tried to get the government to support his appointment as the UN Secretary General’s special envoy for Cyprus, a post that was vacant. To this end, he obtained the backing of the authorities of Cyprus and Greece, a country where he was stationed and where he learned to speak Greek. In addition, he achieved what seemed to be the most difficult thing, which was the agreement of the Turkish government, which is not very inclined to accept a person from an EU country for that post, but which valued González-Barba’s figure for having been ambassador in Ankara. With these endorsements, all that remained was for the Spanish Executive to make its proposal to the UN Secretary General to formalize the candidacy. However, according to sources consulted by The Diplomat, Albares opposed the presentation of Gonzalez-Barba’s candidacy and cut short his aspirations.
The former State Secretary focused, then, his expectations on being appointed ambassador in one of the embassies that were due to change their incumbents in 2022 and that were put out to tender by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Apparently, González-Barba was aware that, given the circumstances of his departure from office, he could not aspire to an embassy of great importance for Spain’s relations, despite the fact that this is the most frequent destination for a former State Secretary, especially if the same party that appointed him is still in government. Moreover, in this competition for embassies there were practically none of this type. So he opted for two European countries, such as Hungary and Croatia. Finally, it was the Balkan country that authorized his appointment as ambassador. González-Barba will replace in the post Alonso Dezcallar, who was at the head of the Embassy in Zagreb since October 2018.
