The Diplomat
The former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and current High Representative of the Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, has been promoted to the professional category of ambassador, according to a royal decree published yesterday in the Official State Gazette (BOE). The ambassador is the highest category within the Diplomatic Career.
Moratinos will reach retirement age in Spain in June of this year, after a long professional career, in which, in addition to being minister for six years, between 2004 and 20109, with the governments of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, he was ambassador to Israel and director general of Foreign Policy for Africa and the Middle East. Likewise, from the end of 1996 to 2003 he was the EU special envoy for the Middle East Peace Process.
Likewise, the BOE yesterday published the promotion to the rank of ambassador of Fernando Valderrama, the current Spanish ambassador to Moscow, who will be 70 years old, the retirement age, next May.
Valderrama also has a long career as a diplomat, having been, among other things, ambassador to Uruguay and permanent representative to the OSCE, as well as consul general in Mexico. In August 2000, he was appointed permanent chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, and in October 2002, he resigned from the post due to irreconcilable differences with the policy developed by the government of José María Aznar, who supported George Bush in his pretension to intervene militarily in the Arab country.
Vicente Canelles, current ambassador to Albania and former diplomatic advisor to the Congress of Deputies, who will retire in September, and José María Valdemoro, who will be 70 years old in March and is currently ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, have also been promoted to ambassador.
