The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved the dismissal of Agustín Santos Maraver as Spain’s permanent representative ambassador to the United Nations in New York, after the vice-president and leader of the Sumar coalition, Yolanda Díaz, announced on Monday that the diplomat will be the ‘number two’ in her candidacy for the general elections on 23 July.
The ambassador’s resignation is mandatory for him to appear on an electoral list, as has been the case with other high-ranking officials. This is not the case with ministers who are on the lists, who can remain in their posts until the elections are held and then remain in office until a new government is formed.
Agustín Santos’ last intervention as head of the Spanish Mission to the UN took place on Monday to defend Spain’s position in the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation, which deals with the situation of Gibraltar.
Her election by Yolanda Díaz has caused surprise among her fellow diplomats, although it was well known that she moved in the left-wing circles and even wrote, under a pseudonym, articles that differed considerably from the government’s official positions on some international issues.
No other person is expected to be appointed to the post of ambassador to the UN, and the Deputy Permanent Representative Ana Jiménez de la Hoz will remain at the head of the Mission, which has around twenty people with diplomatic status. It will be up to the government that emerges from the elections on 23 July to appoint a new ambassador, something it will possibly do soon, once the new Cabinet has been formed, as no approval is required for a multilateral organisation. In any case, it is not foreseeable that this will happen, at least not until September.
