Eduardo González
The new Brazilian ambassador to Madrid, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, presented the the Copies of his Letters of Credence to the Director General of Protocol, Adrián Martín Couce, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to diplomatic sources and the Brazilian Embassy itself, which spoke to The Diplomat.
Letters of Credence are official documents signed by the head of state—in this case, the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—that accredit the ambassador as the diplomatic representative of his country to the receiving state. The presentation of the Copies of Style to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs constitutes a preliminary and formal step before the formal presentation of the Letters of Credence to the King of Spain.
The new ambassador, born in Rio de Janeiro and who turned seventy on July 17, was Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2013) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from August 2013 to December 2014, during Dilma Rousseff’s presidency.
During his year in Dilma Rousseff’s administration, Figueiredo Machado engaged in a bitter diplomatic confrontation with the Israeli government after issuing a statement in July 2014 calling the “escalation of violence” in the Gaza Strip “unacceptable” and recalling the Brazilian ambassador to Israel. In its response, Israel called Brazil a “diplomatic dwarf.”
After leaving the Ministry, Figueiredo Machado served as Brazil’s ambassador to the United States (2015-2016), Portugal (2016-2019), and Qatar (2019-2023). Until now, he served as the Extraordinary Ambassador for Climate Change. Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado will replace Orlando Leite Ribeiro, who held the position since April 2022, as head of the Embassy.
