The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has undertaken to “protect the rights of all participants” in the selection process for the position of director of the Spanish Academy in Rome after the appeal filed by one of the candidates as a result of the technical errors committed during the first call.
On April 25, the Official State Gazette (BOE) published the call for the selection process for the position of director of the Spanish Academy in Rome, dependent on the Ministry. However, the new team of the Undersecretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs later warned that the call for the selection process contained technical errors. For this reason, on October 15, it adopted a Resolution, published in the BOE on October 21, which corrected the initial resolution of April 8.
As a result of this, according to sources familiar with the procedure informed The Diplomat, one of the applicants filed an appeal in which he requests the annulment of the published correction of errors and the selection process followed and the call for a new selection process.
Given the possibility that the applicant’s appeal may be admitted, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent an electronic notification on Monday to the 16 participants in the selection process to inform them of the filing of an appeal filed by another participant so that they themselves can make objections within ten working days from the time they access the electronic notification. Once the ten working day period has concluded, the appeal and the objections will be analyzed with the technical and legal services and a final decision will be made on the procedure.
The Ministry, according to the text of the notification, “is evaluating the appeal submitted by an applicant for the selection process and will proceed in the same way with any objection submitted by other applicants.” “Since the publication of the correction of errors by the new Undersecretary team and in the current phase of analysis of the appeal and possible objections, the main objective of Foreign Affairs is to guarantee strict compliance with the Regulations of the Spanish Academy in Rome and to protect the rights of all participants,” it continues.
After carefully studying the appeal and any objections presented, the Ministry will make a decision, “ensuring at all times compliance with current regulations, guaranteeing the criteria of equality, merit and capacity when filling the position and maintaining, as part of the selection process, a phase of assessment of professional and educational merits, as well as presentation and defense of the report, knowledge of Italian and defense of the curriculum,” concludes the text.
