Luis Ayllón
Spain has almost reached 25% in the number of female ambassadors, following the appointment of three female diplomats to the posts of Heads of Mission in Austria, Senegal and Guatemala, agreed at Tuesday’s Council of Ministers.
The government gave the green light to the appointments of Aurora Mejía as ambassador to Austria, Dolores Ríos as ambassador to Senegal, and Clara Girbau as ambassador to Guatemala, confirming information advanced by The Diplomat.
Thus, of Spain’s 128 ambassadors or permanent representatives in multilateral organisations around the world, 31 are women, which means that almost one in four heads of mission is entrusted to a woman. Two of them do not belong to the Diplomatic Career: Pedro Sánchez’s former ministers Isabel Celáa (Vatican) and Carmen Montón (OAS).
This is not, however, the record number of women at the head of embassies, as in 2022 there were 34 women ambassadors. In the Spanish diplomatic career, just over 70 per cent are men and less than 30 per cent are women, although in recent years this difference has been narrowing, to the point that in the promotion of 2023, the 74th, there were for the first time more women than men, after there had been parity between the two sexes the previous year.
Also recently, the government appointed, for the first time, two women to be ambassadors in countries as important as the United States and China, although previously, during the government of Mariano Rajoy, a woman – María Victoria Morera – had already been at the head of one of the most important embassies in Europe, that of Germany, from where she was removed shortly after the arrival of Pedro Sánchez’s government.
As for the appointments made by this latest Council of Ministers, they are diplomats with extensive professional careers.
Aurora Mejía, who entered the diplomatic career in 1987 and has been appointed ambassador to Vienna, was until a few weeks ago director of the Coordination Office of the Spanish Presidency of the EU in the Presidency of the Government, after having also held the post of director of the department for the European Union at Moncloa.
Previously, she was ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, director general of Western, Central and Southeast Europe, deputy director general of Security and director general of International Legal Cooperation and Relations with Religions in the Ministry of Justice. She has also been ambassador-at-large for Afghanistan and Pakistan and ambassador-at-large for the Promotion of Gender Equality Policies. Abroad, she has been posted to the Embassies in Romania, Denmark and Brazil, as well as to the Permanent Representation of Spain to NATO.
Dolores Ríos, the new ambassador to Senegal, was previously ambassador to Cape Verde and was currently ambassador-at-large for Migratory Affairs. A diplomat since 1991, she has been posted to the embassies in Bolivia, Colombia, Namibia, Paraguay, Mexico and Ecuador, and has also worked on development cooperation issues at the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and on Justice and Home Affairs at the State Secretariat for the European Union.
Finally, Clara Girbau, who has been appointed ambassador to Guatemala, entered the diplomatic career in 1998 and after having been ambassador-at-large for the Promotion of Equality and Reconciliation policies between 2018 and 2020, she became a counsellor in the Permanent Representation to the European Union, in charge of the working groups for relations with Africa (COAFR) and ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific). She was also posted to the embassies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mauritania, Luxembourg and the Permanent Representation to NATO, as well as to the European External Action Service.
