The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, could head the PSOE’s list of candidates for the Congress of Deputies for the province of Cádiz. At least that is what Diario de Cádiz reports, in a report which states that the current head of Spanish diplomacy would be the PSOE’s federal leadership’s favourite for the elections on 23 July.
According to what the newspaper indicates, Sánchez would again bet on a minister to be the ‘number one’ of the socialist candidacy for the Congress of Deputies for Cádiz, after the one chosen in 2019 was the head of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
The newspaper explains that Ferraz understands that Albares, who has been at the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for two years, “knows the province of Cádiz well and is in good harmony with the party leaders in Cádiz after his visits to this land, especially to the Campo de Gibraltar”.
In any case, he points out that the decision is not yet finalised, although it should be before the PSOE finally approves its lists next Saturday, the 9th.
José Manuel Albares, a native of Madrid and a career diplomat, has been a PSOE militant since his youth, but has never been a member of Parliament. He has had a long-standing personal relationship with Pedro Sánchez, who appointed him, in 2018, Secretary General for International Affairs, European Union, G-2º and Global Security and, subsequently, in 2020, Ambassador in Paris, until his appointment as Minister.
Throughout these two years, one of his objectives has been to try to reach an agreement between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit, which is why he has promoted these negotiations and has met on several occasions with mayors and other authorities of the Campo de Gibraltar. His hope was that the Brussels-London agreement would have become a reality during the six months of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, but the early elections seem to have blocked any possibility of achieving this.
