Eduardo González
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has promoted a dozen prominent diplomats with extensive experience in Spanish foreign affairs to the category of first-class plenipotentiary minister, including Jorge Toledo Albiñana, Secretary of State for the EU under Minister Alfonso Dastis (PP); and Enrique Mora, former Director General of Foreign Policy with PP and PSOE governments.
The plenipotentiary minister corresponds to the second highest professional category within the Diplomatic Career, immediately below that of ambassador. The list, published this Friday by the Official State Gazette, was approved on January 23 by the minister, José Manuel Albares.
Among those promoted is Jorge Toledo Albiñana, current ambassador to China. Toledo was ambassador to Senegal and, during the Alfonso Dastis administration, he served as Secretary of State for the EU and Secretary of State for European Affairs (in reality, the same position with two different names) until 2018, when the motion of censure was held that allowed the socialist Pedro Sánchez to take over the government. Subsequently, he was appointed ambassador to Japan and, since September 2022, he has served as ambassador to China.
Another of those promoted is Enrique Mora Benavente, former director general of Foreign Policy and Security under ministers José Manuel García-Margallo, Alfonso Dastis and Josep Borrell, former head of Javier Solana’s Cabinet when he was High Representative of the EU and, until very recently, political director of the European External Action Service (EEAS).
The list continues with Luis Tejada, former director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and former ambassador to Bangladesh and Finland; Juan López-Herrera Sánchez, current Consul General in Oran and former Director General of Bilateral Relations with EU Countries, Candidate Countries and Countries of the European Economic Area; and Manuel Gómez-Acebo Rodríguez-Spiteri, former Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea and Israel and former Director General for the Maghreb, Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
The list is completed by José María Rodríguez Coso, current Ambassador to Luxembourg; Francisco de Asís Benítez Salas, former Ambassador to Guinea and Bangladesh and current Consul General in Toronto; José Ricardo Gómez-Acebo Rodríguez-Spiteri, current Consul General in Lyon; Ramón Blecua Casas, Consul General in Mendoza (Argentina); Alberto Carnero Fernández, Consul General in Pau (France); Alfonso Tena García, former Ambassador to Vietnam and current Head of the EU Countries Area at the Ministry; Alfonso Lucini Mateo, former Ambassador to Italy and Greece and current Consul General in Jerusalem; and Julio Herráiz España, former ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament and current Spanish ambassador to the Special Mission for the Sahel.
