Luis Ayllón
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has decided to call on Alejandro Abellán to complete the reconstruction of the team in charge of the European Union in his department, following the dismissal of Juan González-Barba as State Secretary for the EU, The Diplomat has learned from reliable sources.
Alejandro Abellán will probably be appointed today as the new director general for Internal Market Coordination and Other Community Policies, to fill the vacancy left by María Lledó, who became secretary general of the EU and will be directly in charge of coordinating the work for Spain’s European Presidency in the second half of 2023.
Albares has opted for a diplomat with extensive experience in EU affairs throughout his career and who already held the same position between 2008 and 2010, with the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and then went on to take charge of the Directorate General for General Affairs and EU Policies, which continued with the arrival of the ‘popular’ Mariano Rajoy at La Moncloa.
Abellán’s name came to be heard at the time as a possible permanent representative of Spain to the EU and even as Secretary of State for the EU, but finally in April 2017 he was appointed ambassador to the Dominican Republic, a post in which he remained until August last year.
In this way, the EU Secretary of State is now headed by Pascual Navarro and María Lledó, as Secretary General of the EU. The Director General for General EU Affairs is Salvador Rueda; the Director General for Internal Market Coordination will be Alejandor Abellán; and the Director General for Western, Central and Southeast Europe is Raquel Gómez-Cambronero.
New ambassador to Gabon
On the other hand, according to sources consulted by The Diplomat, the Council of Ministers could today approve the appointment of Ramón Molina Lladó as Spain’s new ambassador to Gabon, replacing Fernando Alonso.
Ramón Molina entered the diplomatic career in 1993 and since 2016 he has been outside it, working as an advisor for the Mideast Consulting Group, a consultancy firm operating from the United Arab Emirates. In his professional career, he has held various posts, such as the second second-in-command at the Spanish Embassies in Baghdad, Hanoi and Nuackchott, as well as having been Director of Exchanges at the Asia-Europe Foundation and Counsellor for Cultural Affairs in Havana.
