The Diplomat
Yesterday, the Council of Ministers appointed Javier Soria and María Pérez Sánchez-Laulhé as ambassadors of Spain in Libya and the Czech Republic, respectively, as The Diplomat had reported.
Javier Soria, who was stationed at the permanent representation of Spain to the United Nations in Geneva, entered the Diplomatic Career in 2008. Previously he was a financial analyst in the Global Investment Analysis Department of Goldman Sachs in London.
As a diplomat, he has worked as head of service in the office of the High Representative for the Spanish Presidency of the European Union in the Presidency of the Government (2008-2009) and has dedicated ten years of his career to the Middle East, in the positions of head of Area for the Middle East in the General Directorate of the Mediterranean, Maghreb and Near East (2009-2012), in charge of Consular and Administrative Affairs at the Embassy of Spain in Jordan (2015-2019) and second head at the Embassy of Spain in Saudi Arabia ( 2019-2021). In addition, he has held the position of diplomatic advisor in the cabinet of the vice president of the Government and spokesperson of the Government between 2012 and 2015.
Soria will replace Javier García-Larrache in Tripoli, who was appointed ambassador in Tripoli in July 2020, when the situation in Libya was still very delicate as a result of the civil war that broke out in 2014, which caused most of the Embassies, among them that of Spain, left the country and followed the situation from Tunisia.
In fact, García-Larrache remained in the Tunisian capital for a year, traveling periodically to Libya, until, in July 2021, Spain reopened its diplomatic representation in Tripoli on the occasion of a visit by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in an exhibition of support to the National Unity Government.
The replacement of García-Larrache was scheduled for the summer of last year, but the call for the general elections on July 23 meant that the Government remained in office and the appointment of the new ambassador did not take place. Diplomat Álvaro Albacete had been chosen for the position and the Libyan authorities had already granted the approval. However, when Pedro Sánchez’s Government was formed at the end of November, the new Minister of Culture, also a diplomat Ernest Urtasun, chose Albacete as head of his Cabinet, so García-Larrache’s replacement was postponed.
For her part, María Pérez Sánchez-Laulhé, who until last February was undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, will be the next ambassador of Spain in the Czech Republic. She will replace Alberto Moreno, a diplomat who will retire at the end of March, who was a Podemos candidate for mayor of Majadahonda and who had been in charge of the Embassy in Prague since September 2022.
The new ambassador in the Czech Republic was appointed undersecretary of Culture and Sports in February 2023, with Miquel Iceta being minister, and was confirmed in the position after the dismissal of Iceta and his replacement by Urtasun, although without the Sports powers.
A diplomat since 2006, she held various technical positions in the Secretariat of State for the European Union until 2008 and then she joined the cabinet of the Secretariat of State for Ibero-America as a technical advisor. From 2009 to 2010 she was part, as an advisory member, of the cabinet of the then Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Trinidad Jiménez.
Abroad, she has been assigned between 2010 and 2013 at the Spanish Embassy in La Paz (Bolivia) as Secretary of the Embassy and in charge of Cultural Affairs. Later, until 2015, she was Cultural Advisor at the Embassy in San José (Costa Rica), where she also directed the Cultural Center of Spain. Between 2016 and 2019 she returned to Bolivia as ‘number two’ and served as director of the Cultural Center of Spain in La Paz until 2018.
In September 2019, she returned to Madrid and joined the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), first as head of the Support Unit of the Director of Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean and, since March 2020, as head of the Department of Cooperation with the Andean Countries and the Southern Cone. In August 2021, she was appointed director of the Cabinet of the Secretary General of Culture, Víctor Francos, and later, Undersecretary of Culture and Sports. In 2013 she was awarded the Cross of the Order of Civil Merit.
