The Diplomat
The Parliamentary Group of Ciudadanos in the Congress of Deputies has presented a proposal not of Law (PNL) to urge the Government to create a paid internship program in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the Embassies, Consulates and offices of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
The PNL, signed by the deputies Edmundo Bal and Marta Martín, proposes that the program be named “Margarita Salaverría”, in honor of the first Spanish woman diplomat, and be endowed with a total of at least 1,200,000 euros.
In the explanatory memorandum, Ciudadanos recalls that Spain has some 5,450 civil servants and labor employees -including some 940 diplomats- to carry out the country’s foreign action, but stresses that “the foreign service -like the Administration- is aging and its professionals are overloaded due to the shortage of personnel resulting from the number of retirements that are not covered by new entries”.
The orange formation indicates that successive governments “have not implemented any kind of mechanism aimed at boosting the entry into the foreign service, taking advantage of the talent of our young professionals in the field of external action, nor to ensure an adequate generational replacement among the civil servant staff”.
The deputies add that the few attempts there have been in this regard, through unpaid internships “have always ended up resulting in a precariousness of employment carried out by young people, in an inequality of entry because only those who have a more advantageous socioeconomic context can afford this type of professional experience, and in a lack of job security given the impossibility of maintaining their employment relationship with the Ministry, with the Network of Embassies and Consulates or with the AECID.”
Ciudadanos points out that, since 2015, their group has proposed various initiatives to alleviate this situation, and specifically, that the Government rejected two amendments to the 2021 General State Budget aimed at financing a program with two lines of paid internships: one for the Network of Embassies and Consulates and AECID offices abroad, worth 700,000 euros, and another, for the central services of the Ministry and the AECID in Spain, worth 500,000 euros.
For this reason, they now insist with their proposal for “paid internships”, through two consecutive lines of action: a 12-month professional internship period, in the central services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and AECID in Spanish territory; and another 18-month internship period in the Network of Embassies and Consulates or AECID offices abroad. To finance the activity, they propose that the program be endowed with at least 1,200,000 euros.
Likewise, they propose the establishment of objective selection criteria based on academic and/or professional merit to ensure equal opportunities in the access of young professionals to the program.
