Eduardo González
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has covered three asterisked posts, specifically the Spanish Consulates General in Mexico, Caracas, and Havana, according to diplomatic sources who spoke to The Diplomat.
The Ministry’s Undersecretariat has informed the Diplomatic Service Board that Marcos Rodríguez Cantero (current Consul General in Caracas) has been selected for the Consulate General in Mexico; Ramón Molina Lladó (current Ambassador to Gabon) for the Consulate General in Caracas; and José Miguel Corvinos (current Ambassador on Special Mission for Digital Transformation and Hybrid Threats) for the Consulate General in Havana. All three will be appointed in April and are scheduled to begin work in August.
The “asterisk” marks the posts the government considers most sensitive and in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, does not need the opinion of the Diplomatic Career Board to decide on the names of those who will fill them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently has a list of 34 posts with an “asterisk.”
On February 7, the Diplomatic Career Board (an advisory body made up of diplomats) approved the call for applications for the vacant posts abroad, known as the “bombo” in diplomatic jargon.
Specifically, the call for applications covered, among the posts with an asterisk, the second-in-command position at the Embassy in Washington, Rabat, and Caracas, and the Spanish Consulates General in Miami, Caracas, and Havana. It also included the second headquarters in Managua, which had the “asterisk” removed, instead assigning it to the second headquarters in Algiers and the Spanish Consulate General in Mexico.
Marcos Rodríguez Cantero, the new Consul General in Mexico, was born in Palencia in 1968 and has been a member of the Diplomatic Service since 1993. After serving in the Spanish Embassies in Equatorial Guinea, India, Luxembourg, and Argentina, and at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the UN in New York, he held various positions in the Ministry (especially in the areas of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation) until being appointed Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau between 2018 and 2021 and subsequently Consul General in Caracas.
Ramón Molina Lladó, the new Consul General in Caracas, was born in Barcelona in 1964 and joined the Diplomatic Corps in 1993. After holding various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency of the Government, he served as Consul in Jerusalem, Deputy Chief of Staff at the Embassies in Gabon, Mauritania, Vietnam, and Iraq, Cultural Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Cuba, and Political Counselor and Head of the Civilian Component of the Qaleh-e-Now Provincial Reconstruction Team within the framework of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF). Since 2022, he has served as Spanish Ambassador to Gabon.
José Miguel Corvinos Lafuente, the new Consul General in Havana, was born in Zaragoza in 1966 and also joined the Diplomatic Corps in 1993. He has served at the Spanish Embassies in Russia, Honduras, and France, was Deputy Chief of Staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs between 2008 and 2010, Spanish Ambassador to Cape Verde (2010-2014) and Malaysia and Brunei (2018-2022), and, since 2023, Ambassador on the Special Mission for Digital Transformation and Hybrid Threats.
