Luis Ayllón
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will have to look for a new Director of Communications, after yesterday the Council of Ministers approved the dismissal of Julio Pastor from that position, who had held it since August 2021.
Julio Pastor was appointed General Director of Communications, Public Diplomacy and Networks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly after Albares took charge of the department, and information on the activity of the minister has depended on him, as well as the Diplomatic Information Office, organ, which, in the past, had great relevance in relations with the media, but which has been progressively losing it.
Diplomatic sources assured The Diplomat that Pastor’s dismissal occurred at his own request, after a conversation with the minister and for personal reasons.
Recently, journalists who cover the activity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded that the Director of Communication adopt a series of measures aimed at facilitating their work and access to information. However, the sources consulted stated that this initiative has nothing to do with the departure of Julio Pastor and that, before the journalists’ requests reached them, he had already made the decision to leave his position, which is now being confirmed, after more than two and a half years in office.
Before coming to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Julio Pastor dedicated himself to the world of corporate communications for almost two decades, in companies such as Caixa Bank, FCC and Unión Fenosa. Likewise, he was Content Director of Invertia, Terra’s financial portal at the time, stock market correspondent in New York for Tele5 or executive editor of América Economía, a magazine of the Dow Jones group.
