Luis Ayllón
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has awarded 111 new posts for diplomats abroad, including some thirty posts in Consulates General, according to a resolution of the Undersecretary of his department, published last Saturday in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
Albares has respected the proposal presented by the Board of the Diplomatic Service, after studying the applications made in the competition for the provision of posts, known in diplomatic jargon as “el Bombo”. As a general rule, those appointed will take up their new posts during the month of August.
Three of these posts, the so-called “asterisk” posts, were decided by the minister, before the Board made its distribution. These are the second post at the Embassy in London, which will go to Jorge Cabrera, the current chief of staff to the undersecretary; the post of deputy permanent representative to the UN in New York, which will be occupied by Ana Jiménez de la Hoz, advisor to the secretary general of the Alliance of Civilisations, Miguel Ángel Moratinos; and the Consulate General in Caracas, which will be filled by Marcos Rodríguez Cantero, former ambassador to Guinea Bissau.
Some of the Consulates General or second posts will be occupied by veteran diplomats who are currently ambassadors, but who already know that they will be relieved of their duties shortly, as they were informed of this when their embassies were put out to tender. This is the case, for example, of Fernando García Casas, current ambassador to Brazil, who will be the new consul general in Buenos Aires; or Manuel Montobbio, permanent representative to the Council of Europe, who will go as ‘number two’ to the OECD.
Other notable appointments include Fernando Carderera, who was ambassador to Paris, Israel and Finland, and who will be the new consul general in Bayonne, a post that had not been put out to tender since the incumbent, Álvaro Alabart, was dismissed in July 2020.
In addition, the new consul general in Geneva will be Alberto Navarro, former secretary of state for the EU and former ambassador to Portugal and Morocco, as well as EU delegate in several countries, the last of them Cuba, where he was at the centre of a controversy when he put his signature on a letter asking US President Joe Biden to lift the embargo against the island and for statements in which he said he did not consider the Castro regime to be a dictatorship. Navarro was appointed Consul General in Boston last year, but subsequently resigned for personal reasons.
Juan José Buitrago, former chief of staff to former foreign minister José Manuel García-Margallo, former ambassador to Cuba and current consul general in Caracas, will take charge of the consulate in Beijing.
Other prominent diplomats, who have headed embassies throughout their careers, have been chosen to take charge of Consulates General. This is the case of Miguel Aguirre de Cárcer (Hong Kong), Luis Calvo (Shanghai), Eduardo de Zulueta (Montreal), Alberto Carnero (Pau); Carlos Sáenz de Tejada (Berne), Luis Belzuz (Casablanca), Ángel Vázquez Díaz de Tuesta (Rio de Janeiro) and Álvaro Castillo (Tetuán).
The following will also occupy Consulates General: Julio Montesinos (Toronto), Ángel Boixareu (Munich), Francisco Javier Dago (Hamburg), Sergio Krsnik (Melbourne), Ramón Blecua (Mendoza), Bernabé Ramón Aguilar (Quito), Guillermo Rebollo (Algiers), José Leandro Consarnau (Nador), Juan Armando Andrada-Vanderwilde (Bahía Blanca), Guillermo Martínez-Correcher (Guadalajara), and Carolina de Manueles (Monterrey).
Among the second heads of mission that have been awarded are Lisbon, where Alfonso López Perona will go; Buenos Aires (Luis Tejada); Cairo (Alfonso Díaz Torres); Beijing (Julio Herráiz); New Delhi (Elena Pérez-Villanueva), Lima (Concepción Figuerola) and Canberra (Monserrat Momán).
Manuel Gómez-Acebo (former ambassador to Israel) and Santiago Gómez-Acebo (former ambassador to Zimbabwe) have also been appointed to the posts of deputy permanent representatives to the OSCE, based in Vienna, in this case for Political-Military Affairs.
Marcos Vega will be Deputy Permanent Representative to the Organisation of American States (OAS), based in Washington; Javier Romera will be assigned as ‘number two’ to the Permanent Representation to the UN and International Organisations based in Vienna; and Mar García-Benasach will be the new COREPER Coordinator at the Permanent Representation to the EU.
Likewise, several cultural counsellor posts have been awarded to important embassies for Spain, such as London, where José María Robles Fraga, former ambassador to Russia and Pakistan and current ambassador to Lithuania, will go; Lisbon, which will be occupied by Pilar Ruiz Carnicero; and Rabat, where José María Davó will go.
