The Diplomat
Uncertainty over the vaccination of diplomats and other overseas workers over when they will be vaccinated against COVID-19 was one of the most hotly debated issues at the recent general assembly held by the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE).
The lack of reassuring answers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is causing unease not only among diplomats, but also among other workers serving outside Spain. In fact, the trade union section of UGT in Foreign Affairs has decided to send a letter to the director general of Public Health of the Community of Madrid, Elena Andradas, to try to find a solution that is not being offered by the central government, an attitude that they describe as “miserable neglect”.
According to The Diplomat, the ADE had already raised the problem verbally in February with both the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, and the Undersecretary, Celsa Nuño, and the response was that the issue of vaccines is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health and that there would be no specific treatment for diplomats and other workers abroad.
However, at the ADE Assembly it was pointed out that the Ministry of Defence does vaccinate military personnel who are sent on international missions, and so the same treatment is requested for other civil servants who have to travel or who are already outside Spain. The concern is greatest among workers in countries where vaccination is lagging behind or where vaccines are administered that are not approved by the European Medicines Agency. In other more advanced locations, some workers have already been vaccinated by decision of the authorities in those countries.
Complaints also extended to the failure to take measures to take advantage of the trips made by those posted abroad to Spain to have the vaccine administered. Some have even received summons from their health centres in Spain to be vaccinated when they were far away, but have not been able to attend, unless they had paid for the trip out of their own pocket.
Among diplomats, it is thought that there is a certain fear in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that, if it establishes a mechanism for their vaccination, it will be seen as a privilege for a group that is labelled as elitist, something they reject, since, like the rest of the workers abroad, they have a special situation, which must be attended to in a particular way.
Thus, the letter from UGT to the Community of Madrid, to which The Diplomat had access, points out that their demands have been answered that it is not possible to meet their request “leaving us and our families,” it says, “totally unprotected in the face of this danger. Diplomats, ambassadors, consuls, secretaries, visa managers, aid workers and many other categories of civil servants have been abandoned without any reason or explanation when the solution we have provided is simple and reliable”.
Specifically, they indicate that given the characteristics of their destinations “many in countries where there are no vaccines or where they cannot be trusted, or others that ignore us because their priorities are their citizens,” they ask “to be able to be vaccinated on our trips to Madrid, whether on holiday or for any other reason”.
