Albares insists that he “never” asks about “political leanings” when appointing an ambassador

Eduardo González The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has assured this Tuesday that the replacement of ambassadors is based on “the usual channels” and that he “never” asks “anyone what their political leanings are in order to appoint them”. Albares responded in this way, during an interview with the program 'La hora de La 1', on TVE, to a question about the letter sent on January 30 by the Board of Directors of the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE), the most representative of the diplomatic career, in which it warns that “the process of publishing vacancies and selecting candidates must be predictable and transparent, with compliance with predetermined deadlines” and “in accordance with objective and non-arbitrary criteria”. In its letter, the ADE considers that “the selection process that has been applied in recent years is hampered by the lack of an updated Regulation that regulates it in detail”, as “many other foreign services that we know of, the European External Action Service and many other international organisations have had for some time”. “Obviously, the ADE does not comment on the professional worth of the candidates selected in this year's call for applications”, but “we understand that the criticisms of the development of this process, and the feeling of personal and professional frustration that some of our associates have expressed to us due to the lack of objective assessment of their merits would not be such if there were a more regulated procedure than the one that exists at present”, the letter continues. Sources from the ADE have denounced to several media outlets the “arbitrary” dismissal of five ambassadors before completing three years and for political reasons. Specifically, the Government has already requested the approbations for the successors of the current ambassadors in Croatia, Juan González-Barba (his successor will be the former spokesman of the PP José Ramón García Hernández), Belgium (Alberto Antón) and South Korea (Guillermo Kirkpatrick de la Vega). In the interview, Albares assured this Tuesday that “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs works with the usual channels, as it has always worked”, and that, in accordance with the Constitution, “the appointments of ambassadors are the exclusive competence and power of the Council of Ministers”. “I never ask anyone what their political leanings or policies are in order to appoint them”, he assured. In fact, he added, some senior officials “from the time of Mariano Rajoy” have been appointed ambassadors by the current Government. Likewise, the minister assured that Foreign Affairs does not comment on the requests for approbations and that the ambassadors mentioned have not yet been dismissed because the Council of Ministers has not agreed to do so. As the day before, Albares insisted that the mandate of an ambassador has “neither a maximum nor a minimum” and that the dismissed ambassadors “continue within the Diplomatic Career performing other types of positions.” “A diplomat spends most of his time in positions other than that of ambassador and when the mission or context changes, the change occurs,” he added. “What I am doing is an effort to achieve parity” between women and men “not only within the Diplomatic Career but also at the ambassador level,” he said. “We have gone from 15% of female ambassadors to 30% and we have put two women in charge of two great powers such as China and the USA,” he specified.

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