The Diplomat
The Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE) yesterday denounced, in a statement, the “continuous degradation” that it considers the Foreign Service has been suffering due to a lack of means and human resources.
The ADE, which groups together more than 65 percent of the members of the Diplomatic Career, refers to the recent labour conflicts that have arisen in different embassies and consulates general, pointing out that they are proof of “a persistent lack of means and human resources“, which afflicts the Spanish Foreign Service. For this reason, the diplomats express their “concern” about what they consider to be a “continuous degradation” of the Foreign Service.
On the 14th of last month, the staff of all the offices attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the United Kingdom began an indefinite strike to demand equal pay and a pay rise. In Berlin, staff have been on strike once a week since the 21st.
The ADE points out that the deterioration it denounces is the result of “a situation that has gone on for too long and which inevitably undermines the quality of the services provided to citizens abroad”, and warns that there is also a lack of resources in the central services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
If our country aspires to continue defending the interests of its citizens and projecting its influence in the world,” the communiqué states, “it must invest in a solid Foreign Service, equipped with adequate human and material resources, and adapted to current times in the management of resources and organisational culture.
For this reason, the ADE “calls on the public authorities and political parties, in an exercise of consensus, to make an effort to return our Foreign Service to its rightful place, in the best interests of our country and our citizens”.
The Association assures that it will promote, together with other senior bodies of the General State Administration, within the framework of a new working group on the Foreign Service in the FEDECA Union (Federation of Administration Staff), “the search for solutions to specific problems of our Foreign Service”.
