The Diplomat
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau last week appointed Anna Sroka, a professor at the University of Warsaw and author of a doctoral thesis on the State of Autonomies in Spain, as Poland’s new ambassador to Madrid.
Anna Sroka will fill the vacancy left nine months ago by Marzenna Adamczyk, a great connoisseur of the language, history and political reality of our country, where she held the post for five years.
The Polish government has once again chosen for the post of ambassador to Madrid a person with strong ties to Spain, since Anna Sroka, a doctor in Political Science and until now a lecturer at the University of Warsaw, was, between 2006 and 2008, a researcher at the Antonio de Nebrija University and at the National University of Distance Education (UNED).
She is also the author of a thesis entitled “The Spanish State of Autonomies in the Process of Change of its Territorial Structures”.
In a recent interview with “El Debate”, following her nomination for the post of ambassador to Madrid, Anna Sroka recalled that in that thesis, which she defended in 2006, she wrote in her conclusions that Catalan separatism, more than Basque separatism, was a threat to the unity of Spain. “They were very controversial theses because, at the time when I was doing the interviews and writing the book, the main political problem in Spain, in terms of territorial structure, was the Basque separatist Ibarretxe Plan. Today, 16 years later, it turns out that my diagnosis was correct”, she points out.
After stating that “only Spaniards can give their opinion and decide whether their territorial system should be changed or not”, she responded to a question on how the conflict with Catalan separatism is seen from the outside and affirmed that “it varies from one political environment to another, just as it does in Spain”.
“Generally, she explains, when I ask my students what they think about this, they say that every nation has the right to self-determination. However, when I ask them how they would react if one of the Polish regions wanted to secede and create its own state, they are not so sure about self-determination”.
Anna Sroka will soon be arriving in Spain to take charge of the Embassy, and in the same interview she expresses her hope that Spaniards will be able to perceive Poland as a country that is culturally close to them and “as a modern country, but faithful to its traditions, which come mainly from Catholicism and love of freedom”.
It so happens that just a week ago, the Spanish government appointed Ramiro Fernández Bachiller, a diplomat, as its new ambassador to Poland.
