The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday appointed diplomat Miguel de Lucas to the post of Spanish ambassador to Jordan, as previously announced by The Diplomat.
De Lucas was the general director of Centro Sefarad-Israel until last March, when he was replaced after fourteen years at the head of this institution, nine of them as director. Due to his connections with the Jewish world, there had been speculation in diplomatic circles that he could be appointed ambassador to Israel, but in the end, the one chosen for the post was Ana Salomon, who had been the first director of Centro Sefarad-Israel.
Miguel de Lucas, who will replace Arantxa Bañón – ambassador to Amman since May 2017 – has been a diplomat since 1993. His first posting in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for International Cooperation and for Ibero-America and, in 1994, he began a nine-year stint abroad starting in Nigeria, where he served as Second-in-Command. Subsequently, he was Secretary of Embassy for Consular Affairs in Paraguay and Second Head of Embassy and Director of the Spanish Cultural Center in Cameroon.
In 2003 he returned to Spain to take up the post of head of area for Southeast Asia, the Philippines and the Pacific in the Directorate General for Foreign Policy for Asia, and in 2007 he joined Centro Sefarad-Israel as director of International Relations, until he was appointed secretary general in 2009 and, in 2013, director general of this institution. During the last five years he has combined this responsibility with those of head of the Spanish Interministerial Delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and member of the Board of Trustees of the Pluralism and Coexistence Foundation.
