The Diplomat
The Popular Parliamentary Group in Congress has asked the Government to adopt “urgent” measures to resolve the situation of Spanish Foreign Service workers (PLEX), adapting it “to the reality of the State in which they must carry out their work”.
In a Proposition not of Law presented in mid-April, the PP recalls that, on May 24 last year, the Foreign Affairs Committee approved “by a majority” a previous motion of the Popular Group that addressed the problems existing in the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs abroad, with special attention to the problems of the personnel hired in those offices.
That Proposition urged the Government to provide the Spanish consulates with the necessary material and human resources to be able to adequately attend to Spaniards living abroad, as well as to foreigners who require any procedure to travel to Spain. It also urged the Government to articulate and coordinate among all the Ministries concerned “the channels of dialogue already initiated and necessary” with the groups of workers of the Spanish Foreign Service “to analyze and urgently resolve their labor and professional demands, adapting their working conditions and salaries to the reality of the State in which they must perform their work”.
“One year later, and according to the collective of the staff of the three consulates general in the United Kingdom, as well as the Embassy in London, the situation has hardly changed,” regrets the Popular Group. About a year ago, recalls the PP, foreign service workers went on strike in several countries to support their demands because “they had only achieved one of the initial objectives, namely a salary increase of 8.75%”, an increase that “does not cover the great loss of purchasing power produced during the more than 14 years of freezing their salaries”.
The situation is “particularly worrying” in the United Kingdom, where, following the country’s exit from the European Union, “inflation has soared, reaching levels not known since the Second World War”. Apart from this, these workers continue to demand the right to opt for the Spanish Social Security system, as reflected in the Withdrawal Agreement following the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and denounce that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues not to offer them “any complement to the existing system in the country”. “They also recall that differences in remuneration continue to be maintained between the labor staff of the same administrative category that performs the same functions, with the case that workers with greater seniority receive lower salaries than those of recent recruitment,” continues the PNL.
The Popular Group also denounces “the lack of personnel in the offices of the administration abroad, given that a policy of temporary or short-term contracts that do not meet the needs of these work centers continues to be practiced”. The lack of adequate planning to deal with situations that have further aggravated what has already been described, such as, for example, the repeal of the rogatory vote or the approval of the Law of Democratic Memory, are contributing to the collapse of these offices that had already been saturated for quite some time,” it continues.
“In short, all the shortcomings in terms of personnel and Human Resources, after the strikes of this staff in the United Kingdom, and seconded in other countries in the absence of solutions, is giving a bad image of the Foreign Service of our country,” warns the PP. For all these reasons, the following Proposition of Law “urges the Government to comply with what was approved in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress on May 24, 2022, and in particular to coordinate with all the affected Ministries the adoption of the necessary measures and dialogue with the groups of Spanish Foreign Service workers to urgently respond to their labor and professional demands, adapting them to the reality of the State in which they must perform their work”.
