Luis Ayllón
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, continues to finalise some of the appointments of new ambassadors out of the fifty or so that he plans to make during the course of the year.
As The Diplomat has learned from reliable sources, the current director of the Diplomatic School, Alberto Antón, could be the new ambassador to Belgium, where he would replace Beatriz Larrotcha. Antón has previously been Spain’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, ambassador in Special Mission for Digital Diplomacy and ‘number two’ at Spain’s Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and at the Embassy in Tunisia.
The name of former foreign minister Alfonso Dastis, currently ambassador to Italy, was once mentioned for this post, and according to rumours in diplomatic circles, he could go on to head the embassy in Lisbon. The same rumours suggest that his post in Rome would be filled by Spain’s current permanent representative to NATO, Miguel Fernández-Palacios, once the Atlantic Alliance Summit is held in Madrid at the end of June.
The appointment of Mar Fernández-Palacios as ambassador to Brazil appears to be more certain, as The Objective reported. Mar Fernández-Palacios, who will fill the vacancy left by Fernando García-Casas, future consul general in Buenos Aires, is currently ambassador to Nicaragua, although she has been in Madrid since she was recalled for consultations by the government in September last year, in protest at the attitude of Daniel Ortega’s regime.
The future ambassador to Brazil, who has held the second post in Havana and has been deputy director general for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, will arrive in the country on the eve of the presidential elections that will pit current president Jair Bolsonaro against former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in October.
The sources consulted also point to the appointment as ambassador to Romania of José Antonio Hernández Pérez-Solórzano, currently consul general in Havana and former deputy director general for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, who has also been ‘number two’ in the Spanish embassies in Luxembourg, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Haiti. He will replace Manuel Larrotcha.
Similarly, Javier Carbajosa will go as ambassador to Qatar, shortly after Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani announced a 4.7 billion euro increase in the country’s investment in Spain during his visit to Madrid. Carbajosa has previously been ambassador to Pakistan and Trinidad and Tobago, ‘number two’ at the embassies in the United Kingdom and Algeria, and deputy director general for the Middle East.
For his part, Alberto de la Calle will be the new ambassador to Namibia, after having been deputy director of the Foreign Minister’s office and having been posted to the Permanent Representation to the UN in New York and held second posts at the embassies in Ecuador, the United Arab Emirates and Kenya, among other posts.
Other names circulating, without confirmation, in the corridors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as possible ambassadors are those of Eva Martínez, who was director general for the Maghreb, the Mediterranean and the Middle East until the arrival of José Manuel Albares, and whose name has been strongly mentioned to take charge of the embassy in Costa Rica; Diego Nuño, currently assigned to the Permanent Representation in Brussels and former deputy director general for Multilateral and Horizontal Affairs in Sub-Saharan Africa, whose destination could be Honduras; and Natibel Peña, currently deputy director general for Bilateral Relations with Sub-Saharan African countries, who could be the new ambassador to Cape Verde.
Similarly, the sources consulted pointed out that for the Embassy in Finland the name that is circulating strongly is that of the former director of the Diplomatic School, Fernando Fernández-Arias, who stepped down as director general of the United Nations shortly after Arancha González Laya was replaced by Albares.
As for Ireland, Ion de la Riva, former ambassador to India and Unesco, has been the name that has been mentioned for some time to take over the embassy that Ildefonso Castro will be leaving.
As The Diplomat reported, Albares has chosen Juan Duarte to be the new ambassador to Mexico; Guillermo Kirkpatrick for South Korea; José Antonio Ory for Pakistan; Mercedes Alonso Frayle for Singapore; and Ignacio García Lumbres for Cameroon. In addition, Ramiro Fernández-Bachiller was recently appointed ambassador to Poland.
