Luis Ayllón
The Spanish diplomat Jorge Toledo will be the new ambassador to the European Union Delegation in China, replacing the Frenchman Nicolas Chapuis, The Diplomat has learned from EU sources.
The decision was taken by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, after considering the numerous candidates who aspired to the post.
Beijing is one of the most important EU delegations in the world and, for the first time, it will be occupied by a Spaniard. Carmen Cano, also a Spanish diplomat, was the second head of the Delegation between 2011 and 2016.
Jorge Toledo, who will take up his post in September, was until two months ago Spain’s ambassador to Japan.
A diplomat since 1989, Toledo has spent much of his career in posts related to the European Union, since 2000, when he began working in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Foreign Policy and for the European Union and on the Organising Committee of the Spanish Presidency of the EU. In 2005 he was appointed Director of the Secretary of State for the EU and between 2012 and 2016 he was Director of the Department of European Affairs and G20 in the Cabinet of the then Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. In December 2016 he was appointed Secretary of State for the European Union.
In October 2018, he became ambassador to Tokyo, a capital where he had already been posted at the beginning of his career, as well as to New Delhi. He was also ambassador to Senegal between 2008 and 2011.
