Eduardo González
Former Sate Secretary and current ambassador to Bolivia, Fernando García Casas, is among the 21 diplomats promoted this past Tuesday, December 16, by the Council of Ministers to the professional rank of ambassador, according to the Official State Gazette.
All those promoted were, until now, Ministers Plenipotentiary of the First Class. The rank of ambassador is the highest in the Diplomatic Service and is usually granted to diplomats who are nearing retirement age.
Born in Madrid in 1957, Fernando García Casas served as State Secretary for International Cooperation and Ibero-America between 2016 and 2017, during the tenure of Alfonso Dastis as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mariano Rajoy (PP) as Prime Minister. He has also served as ambassador to Brazil and Estonia, consul general in Buenos Aires, and chief of staff to the Ibero-American Secretary General, among other positions in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since June 2024, he has been Spain’s ambassador to Bolivia.
Among those promoted are other diplomats with extensive careers in the Diplomatic Service, some of whom are nearing retirement age. This is the case of José María Robles Fraga, former PP deputy, former ambassador to Russia, Pakistan, and Lithuania, and current Minister-Counselor for Cultural and Scientific Affairs in London, who will turn 70 in April, the mandatory retirement age for civil servants; and Manuel Gómez-Acebo Rodríguez-Spiteri, who will also reach retirement age in April and who served as ambassador to Equatorial Guinea and Israel and as director general for the Maghreb, Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.
Among those promoted is Marta Betanzos, the current ambassador to China, who throughout her extensive career has served as ambassador to Mali, Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), ambassador to Portugal, and director of the Multilateral Affairs and OSCE Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Another notable figure is Federico de Torres Muro, Spain’s current ambassador to NATO, who previously held positions including Director General of Foreign and Security Policy and ambassador to Ecuador and El Salvador.
The list also includes Rafael Garranzo García, Secretary General of the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation since last November, who previously served as Director General of Foreign Policy for North America, Asia, and the Pacific at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Another of those promoted is Román Oyarzun Marchesi, the current Consul General in Amsterdam, who has served, among other positions, as Director of the Cabinet of the State Secretariat for International Cooperation and Ibero-America (SECIPI), Ambassador to Argentina, Permanent Representative to the UN, and Ambassador to Denmark.
Among the other promotions are Josep María Bosch Bessa, former Ambassador to Jamaica and current Consul General in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Manuel Larrotcha, former Ambassador to Kazakhstan and Romania and Consul General in Toulouse, whose sister, Beatriz Larrotcha (Undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Alfonso Dastis’s tenure), was also on the list of those promoted to the rank of Ambassador exactly one year ago, but her promotion could not be finalized because she had passed away a few days earlier after a long illness.
The list of those promoted also includes Francisco José Rábena Barrachina, former ambassador to Singapore and El Salvador and current Spanish consul in Zurich; Luis Belzuz de los Ríos, current consul general in Casablanca and former ambassador to Honduras and Slovakia; Santiago Martínez-Caro de la Concha-Castañeda, former ambassador to Zimbabwe; Álvaro de Salas Giménez de Azcárate, former ambassador to Bangladesh and current consul general in Chicago; Ana María Menéndez Pérez, former advisor for Political Affairs to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and current ambassador representative to the UN and other international organizations based in Vienna; and Ramón Abaroa, former ambassador to North Macedonia and former ambassador on Special Mission for Maritime Security and current consul general in Montpellier.
Also on the list are Eduardo Aznar Campos, consul general in Rome and former ambassador to Croatia; Bernardo de Sicart, current ambassador to Indonesia and former ambassador to Switzerland and Luxembourg; Juan Sunyé, current consul general in Düsseldorf and former ambassador to Austria; María Victoria Scola Pliego, consul general in Montevideo until last July; Marcelino Cabanas, consul general in Perpignan and former ambassador to Cameroon and Nigeria; and Pedro Martínez-Avial, former ambassador to Iraq and former director general of Casa Árabe.