Eduardo González
Veteran diplomat Fernando Fernández-Arias Minuesa has been appointed Consul General of Spain in Rio de Janeiro, according to the Official State Gazette (BOE) published on September 19.
A law graduate, Fernando Fernández-Arias (Madrid, 1964) has been a diplomat since 1990. Much of his career has been linked to the UN since its inception, including being head of department in the Deputy Directorate General for the United Nations at the Ministry. He also served at the Spanish Embassy in Jordan and at the Consulates in Jerusalem and London, and held the deputy position at the Embassy in Finland.
Between 2007 and 2008, Fernando Fernández-Arias was Director of the Office of International Relations at the Ministry of Equality, and between 2008 and 2009, he served as Vice President of the European Union Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men. In 2009, he participated in the US State Department’s Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellow program in Washington.
Between 2010 and 2015, Fernández-Arias was stationed at the Spanish Mission to the UN in New York, where he coordinated the campaign for Spain’s election as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, which became a reality in the 2015-2016 term. He later served as Political Coordinator for that organization. Between 2016 and 2017, he conducted research at Harvard University on the role of the United Nations Security Council in the promotion and protection of human rights.
Fernández-Arias is also an expert on human rights, a subject on which he has published several publications. He also served as Deputy Director General of the Human Rights Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2005 and 2008 and as an advisory member of the Subdirectorate General for Migration Affairs in 2015.
In November 2017, he became Director of Programming at Casa América. From 2018 to 2021, he served as Ambassador Director of the Diplomatic School, and from 2021 to 2022, he was Director General of the United Nations, International Organizations, and Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2022, he was appointed Spanish Ambassador to Finland, serving until his retirement in 2025.
Separately, Carlos Enrique Fernández-Arias Minuesa is the new Consul General in Marseille. Born in 1959 in Madrid, he holds a law degree and joined the diplomatic service in 1987. He has served in the Spanish diplomatic missions in Malaysia, the Federal Republic of Germany, and France. He has served as executive advisor in the Cabinet of the Minister of Defense and deputy director general for North Africa. In 2005, he was appointed deputy director general for Common Foreign and Security Policy, and in August 2008, he was appointed ambassador representing Spain on the Political and Security Committee of the Council of the European Union and ambassador and permanent representative of Spain to the Council of the Western European Union. He is currently director of the Cabinet of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
