The Diplomat
The acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, participated yesterday in the inauguration of Casa Asia’s new headquarters in Barcelona, in which he assured that “public diplomacy such as that carried out by Casa Asia is an irreplaceable instrument”.
Albares attended the inauguration of the new offices, in Elisabets Street in Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella district, together with the director general of Casa Asia, Javier Parrondo; the manager, Adelaida Rodríguez; the commissioner for the Promotion of the City of Barcelona, Pau Solanilla, and the director general of External Action of the Generalitat, Anna Dotor.
The minister stressed that Casa Asia has accumulated two decades of work to promote “dialogue and better knowledge between Spain” and Asian countries, and stressed that it is an example of what administrations can achieve when they work together with the same objective.
He defended that the current moment is the most complex and convulsive for Europe and the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall due to the situation in Russia and Ukraine, and assured that at this time the concepts of “dialogue, partner and friend” make even more sense, according to the minister.
Javier Parrondo welcomed the opening of the new headquarters in a central location close to other institutions, and said that “it responds to the needs of the house, but should not be an obstacle” for Casa Asia to move permanently to the Palau de Pedralbes, as is planned when the refurbishment work is completed.
Solanilla defended that Casa Asia will be “one of the pieces of the recovery of the momentum” of Ciutat Vella”, and guaranteed the commitment of the City Council led by Jaume Collboni that the institution will move permanently to Pedralbes.
Casa Asia, created in 2001 as a public diplomacy organisation, is made up of the Ministry, the Generalitat and the city councils of Barcelona and Madrid, and has its headquarters in the Catalan capital, while it also has a centre in Madrid.
The minister visited the facilities of the new headquarters – in a building known as Capella de la Casa dels Infants Orfes and protected as a cultural asset of local interest – and greeted the staff of Casa Asia.
