Luis Ayllón
The Council of Ministers yesterday appointed Alberto Ucelay Urech as the new director general of Foreign and Security Policy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, replacing Guillermo Ardizone.
Ucelay, who entered the Diplomatic Career in 1996, was, since July 2021, general director for the Maghreb, Mediterranean and Middle East, an area that he knows quite well, given that a good part of his career has been spent in Arab countries. He thus occupied the second leadership in the Embassies in Morocco (2010-2013), Kuwait (2013-2016) and Tunisia (2016-2018) and between August 2018 and July 2021 he was ambassador to Sudan.
He was also deputy consul general in Jerusalem and deputy director general for the Middle East, as well as advisor to the Special Representative of the European Union for the Middle East Peace Process, in 2006 and 2007.
Now, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who has great confidence in Ucelay, has chosen him to replace Guillermo Ardizone -appointed a year and a half ago- as head of the General Directorate with the greatest political weight within his department, especially in matters that have to do with political and strategic decisions adopted in the European Union.
Despite the relevance of the position, which in past times reached the rank of General Secretary, since Pedro Sánchez became President of the Government in June 2018, its holders have remained there for a short time.
In total, with Ucelay, there have been five diplomats at the head of the General Directorate of Foreign and Security Policy. After the arrival of Josep Borrell at the Santa Cruz Palace, he kept Enrique Mora in the position, who held it until February 2020. Borrell’s replacement, Arancha González-Laya, appointed Fidel Sendagorta, who was in the position until September 2021 and months later he was appointed ambassador to Japan. The then minister, José Manuel Albares, chose Federico Torres Muro to occupy the position, who served until October 2022 when he became permanent representative of Spain to NATO. It was then that Albares appointed Guillermo Ardizone.
In any case, from his new position Alberto Ucelay will be able to continue dealing to a certain extent with Middle East affairs at a time when there is great tension in the area.
He will do them in coordination with the new general director for the Maghreb, Mediterranean and Middle East, who will be Carmen Magariños, until now, director of Cooperation with Africa and Asia, at the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
Carmen Magariños has been a diplomat since 2007 and in 2009 she was already head of the Support Unit of the Cooperation Directorate for Africa, Asia and Europe. Later, in 2013 and 2014, she was assigned to the General Subdirectorate of the Maghreb.
In the European External Action Service, between 2014 and 2021, she was desk officer and president of COAFR in the Africa Directorate, and she held the Second Head of the European Union Delegation in Dakar. She has also been in charge of consular and administrative affairs at the Spanish Embassy in Malabo (2010-2012) and Technical Advisor in the Department of Coordination of Cultural and Scientific Relations (2008-2009).
