Luis Ayllón
The Spanish government plans to appoint diplomat Javier Conde y Martínez de Irujo as its new ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, once the country’s authorities give the go-ahead, The Diplomat has learned from reliable sources.
Conde, currently deputy director general for Justice and Home Affairs at the Secretariat of State for the EU, had initially been chosen by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares to head the embassy in Libya, until now occupied by Javier García-Larrache.
However, it seems that Javier Conde’s final destination will be Malabo, where he will replace Alfonso Barnuevo.
A diplomat since 2002, Conde has been posted throughout his career to the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Union and the Embassies in Quito and Asunción – where he was ‘number two’ – as well as to the Permanent Representation to the OECD in Paris. In addition, he was Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of the Interior between 2013 and 2016.
For the post of ambassador to Libya, the minister is now leaning towards Álvaro Albacete, a diplomat who has held the post of deputy secretary general of the Union for the Mediterranean for just over a year.
Albacete, who will arrive in Tripoli two years after Spain reopened its embassy in Libya, began his diplomatic career in 2010 in the cabinet of the then foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, and in 2011 was appointed director of the Sefarad Centre and ambassador-at-large for Spain’s relations with Jewish communities. Between 2014 and 2022 he worked at the International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), based in Vienna, where he has been deputy secretary general.
Sources consulted by The Diplomat also informed that Gabriel Sistiaga is expected to be the new ambassador to Bangladesh, replacing Francisco de Asís Benítez Salas.
A diplomat since 2001, Gabriel Sistiaga, who is currently second in command at Spain’s Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, has been posted to the King’s Household and has also been ‘number two’ at the embassies in Algiers and Beirut.
Albares will thus complete the appointments of new ambassadors, which are expected to take place this summer and affect eleven embassies.
As The Diplomat reported, the minister has already decided to appoint Juan José Sanz as ambassador to Serbia; Carmen Cano, ambassador to Vietnam; Teresa Orjales, ambassador to Mozambique; Guillermo López-Mac-Lellan, ambassador to Ethiopia; and Gloria Mínguez, ambassador to Niger.
Of the package of embassies whose replacement was announced last year, those who will take over the embassies in Mali, Guinea Conakry and the Democratic Republic of Congo have yet to be announced.
