The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will today propose the name of Irene Lozano to the Governing Council of Casa Árabe to head this public diplomacy institution, according to elDiario.es. The post has been vacant since the appointment of its previous director general, Pedro Martínez-Avial, as ambassador to Iraq last July.
Lozano left her seat as a PSOE regional deputy in the Madrid Assembly a few days ago, just four months after the elections held in the region.
Casa Árabe’s Governing Council is made up of representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Community and City Council of Madrid, the Regional Government of Andalusia and the City Council of Cordoba, as this city also has a headquarters. The appointment of the director is agreed by consensus among all the institutions, at the proposal of the Foreign Ministry.
Diplomatic sources confirmed that the Governing Council will take the decision today and indicated that it is not expected that what happened months ago with Casa América, where the Autonomous Community and the Madrid City Council opposed the appointment of the Government’s candidate, Borja Cabezón, a regional deputy for the PSOE, would occur. The opposition caused Casa América to remain without a director for eight months, until, with the arrival of José Manuel Albares at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was unblocked by presenting the diplomat Enrique Ojeda as a candidate.
For some time there was speculation in diplomatic circles that the diplomat Hansi Escobar, former ambassador to Iraq and with extensive experience in the Arab world, would be the new director of Casa Árabe, but in the end the speculation was not confirmed.
Irene Lozano, journalist and writer, maintains a close friendship with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who entrusted her with the writing of his book ‘Manual de Resistencia’, written when he was ousted from the PSOE’s general secretariat.
She was a member of parliament for UPyD between 2011 and 2015, when she was re-elected as an independent on the PSOE lists. In 2018, Pedro Sánchez entrusted her with the post of State Secretary for Global Spain, a position she held until her appointment as president of the Higher Sports Council in January 2020, which she left to join Ángel Gabilondo’s list of candidates for the Madrid Regional Government.
Casa Árabe was founded in 2006 with the aim of being a meeting point with the Arab world, where different actors and institutions, both private and public, from the fields of business, education, academia, politics and culture, dialogue, interact, establish lines of cooperation and undertake joint projects, according to the institution’s website. It maintains a close relationship with the ambassadors of the Arab countries accredited in Madrid and organises various activities such as conferences, debates, exhibitions, etc.
