The Diplomat
The Consul General of Spain in Porto Alegre (Brazil), Luis Zaballa Gómez, died yesterday in Madrid at the age of 56, diplomatic sources confirmed to The Diplomat.
Luis Zaballa, who had held the post for two years, was on holiday in Spain and was apparently the victim of a heart attack.
Born in Bilbao in 1965, he graduated in law from the Autonomous University of Madrid (1988) and entered the diplomatic service in 1994. After working in parliamentary affairs in the Cabinet of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Javier Solana, he held the post of second-in-command at the Spanish Embassy in Angola.
Throughout his career, he was also ‘number two’ at the Embassies in Ukraine (2003-2006) and Norway (2009-2012), and cultural counsellor in Venezuela (2006-2009). In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was head of area in the Directorate General of the United Nations and in the Directorate General of North America. Between 2012 and 2015 he was head of service in the area of Foreign Policy Analysis and Forecasting and, subsequently, head of area Balkan Countries.
