The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will reinforce the Spanish Consulates in Mexico City, Havana and Buenos Aires with the appointment of three new deputy consuls in order to cope with the avalanche of applications for Spanish nationality, diplomatic sources told The Diplomat.
This was communicated by the Undersecretary of Foreign Ministry, Luis Cuesta, to the Board of the Diplomatic Career, indicating that, “immediately” these posts will be called so that diplomats who wish to apply can do so in a “bombito”, the name given in Spanish diplomatic jargon to this type of extraordinary call for applications.
The avalanche of requests for Spanish nationality from those who consider themselves, in some Latin American countries, to fall under the assumptions established in the Law of Democratic Memory, popularly known as the Law of Grandchildren, has led the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to request authorisation from the Ministry of Finance for 300 civil servants, which would be added to another 310 permanent positions already planned by the department headed by José Manuel Albares.
Given that Mexico, Cuba and Argentina are the countries with the highest number of applicants, it has been decided to increase the number of deputy consuls in the different capitals, in an attempt to speed up the processing and resolution of applications.
Thus, Havana, which had one consul general and three deputy consuls, will soon have four to deal with the numerous applications for nationality that are being presented in the Cuban capital.
For its part, Buenos Aires will have a new deputy consul, who will join the consul general and the two current deputy consuls.
Finally, Mexico City will have three consuls, as it will add a deputy consul to the existing one, along with the consul general.
On the other hand, the Board of the Diplomatic Career has already proposed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the names to fill the vacancies put up for competition in the ‘Bombo’, which join those already chosen by the Minister himself because they carry an ‘asterisk’ and which The Diplomat reported on: the second chiefs in Mexico (María Salcedo), Havana (Eduardo Sánchez Moreno) and Caracas (Ricardo Santos), as well as the post of deputy permanent representative to the United Nations agencies in Geneva (Clara Cabrera).
Some of these nominations include the second post at the Embassy to the Holy See, which will be held by Eduardo López Busquets, and the post at the Embassy in Tokyo, which will be held by Miguel Gómez de Aranda.
In addition, the Consul General in Rome will be Eduardo Aznar; in Milan, Álvaro Trejo; in Canton, Eduardo Alonso; in Guayaquil, Pedro Sanz; in Toronto, Francisco Benítez; in Stuttgart, Ricardo Mor; and in London, as Deputy Consul, Isabel García Llamazares. Likewise, the cultural adviser in Buenos Aires will be Ricardo Varela.
