Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, yesterday chaired for the first time the Board of Trustees of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP), a month after assuming the presidency of this state public sector foundation dedicated to international cooperation in matters of administration and public policies.
The headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Santa Cruz Palace yesterday hosted the meeting of the Board of Trustees, in which the new additions to its highest governing body were approved and the management was renewed. José Manuel Albares assumed the presidency of the FIIAPP on January 26 with the aim of giving more weight to the contribution of this foundation to Spanish foreign action and to recognize “its role as a facilitator of international cooperation of Spanish public administrations and its contribution to the 2030 Agenda”, as reported by the FIIAPP at the time.
As a consequence of this change, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs begins to assume the presidency instead of the First Vice-Presidency of the Government, as occurred until now (specifically, instead of the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, who had replaced previously to Nadia Calviño after her appointment as president of the European Investment Bank, EIB).
At yesterday’s meeting, the incorporations of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, were approved. The State Secretary for Ibero-America and the Caribbean and Spanish in the World, Susana Sumelzo, and the State Secretary for Territorial Policy, Arcadi España, also joined, in this case to reinforce the contribution of the autonomous communities and city councils in cooperation. development.
With these additions, there are now four ministers on the Board of Trustees of the Foundation (Albares, Grande-Marlaska, Saiz and Félix Bolaños as Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts), considering that they are “the Ministries with the greatest international projection.” , as reported by Foreign Affairs and the FIIAPP in a joint statement.
The Board of Trustees also has 19 secretaries and undersecretaries of State, including almost the entire leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the State Secretary for Foreign and Global Affairs, Diego Martínez Belío; the State Secretary for the EU, Fernando Sampedro; the State Secretary for International Cooperation, Eva Granados; and the director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Antón Leis; and the aforementioned Susana Sumelzo.
In one of his interventions, Albares highlighted the importance of the Foundation for Spain’s foreign action, since it allows it to accompany public policy reform processes and promote the functioning of the rule of law, social and territorial cohesion, the empowerment of women and effective access to rights from the practical experiences of Spanish policies themselves.
On the other hand, the Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Francisco Tierraseca and Tobias Jung, as director and general secretary, respectively, of the Foundation. Francisco Tierraseca, Government delegate in Castilla La-Mancha between 2019 and 2023, will replace Anna Terrón, while Tobias Jung will take the place of Inma Zamora, general secretary of FIIAPP until October 2023.
During the Board of Trustees meeting, the foundation manager presented the budget for 2024, which foresees income of 67.9 million euros, of which 61 million are European funds for the execution of projects. For this year, the foundation’s operational priorities will be the leadership and execution of large European social cohesion projects, the fight against organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, digitalization in countries such as Ukraine or the Dominican Republic, the fight against change climate change and technical cooperation twinning in neighboring countries and Latin America.
