The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved the appointment of Jorge Moragas as Spain’s ambassador to Tanzania and Pilar Terrén as ambassador to Nicaragua, as The Diplomat had announced.
Jorge Moragas, who was director of Mariano Rajoy’s Cabinet when he was Prime Minister, has gone, in four and a half years, from being Spain’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York to heading the embassy in Dar-es-Salam, the capital of Tanzania, an East African country with more than 60 million inhabitants, via Manila.
In reality, Moragas could not stay long as ambassador to the UN -where he was appointed in December 2017- because after the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to the Government, in the summer of 2018, he was removed from the post, albeit to be appointed ambassador to the Philippines, a country with which he has family ties.
Four years later, Moragas left Manila -where he is replaced by Miguel Utray- to take charge of the Embassy in Tanzania, with multiple accreditation in Rwanda and Burundi, taking over from Francisco Pedrós.
A diplomat since 1995, Jorge Moragas soon came into contact with Moncloa, specifically in the Protocol services, when the Socialist Felipe González was still President of the Government, but his professional career was later linked to the PP. After the arrival of José María Aznar to the Executive, in December 1998, Javier Zarzalejos incorporated him into his team in the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Government and three months later he put him at the head of his Cabinet. During José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s time as Prime Minister, Moragas was a Member of Parliament and Secretary of International Relations for the PP. He returned to Moncloa in 2011, as head of Mariano Rajoy’s Cabinet, with the rank of State Secretary, and left the post to take up his first post abroad as a diplomat: the Embassy to the UN.
For her part, Pilar Terrén, currently deputy director general of Chancery at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will occupy the embassy in Managua almost a year after the government of Pedro Sánchez recalled the previous ambassador, Mar Fernández-Palacios, for consultations.
The Spanish government, without renouncing its criticism of Daniel Ortega’s regime, is trying to normalise diplomatic relations with Managua, taking advantage of the fact that the post of ambassador to Nicaragua is vacant, after Mar Fernández-Palacios was appointed to head the Spanish embassy in Brazil. She is also responding to requests from relatives of opponents detained by Ortega, who prefer to have eyes in Managua that can tell what is happening in the country.
Pilar Terrén entered the diplomatic career in 2003 and has been posted twice to Mexico as Deputy Consul in the Consulate General and first secretary of the Embassy, and in El Salvador as second head of the Embassy. In addition, she worked in the Protocol Department of the Presidency of the Government and was an advisor to the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs and Inspector General of Services.
