The Diplomat
Rosario Bernal and Antonio Álvarez Barthe have been chosen by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, as new consuls general in London and Havana, respectively, according to what the Undersecretary of the Department, Luis Cuesta, communicated to the Board of the Diplomatic Career on Monday.
Both posts were part of the extraordinary competition for the provision of posts abroad – the ‘bombito’, in diplomatic jargon – and were marked with an asterisk, which means that it is the minister who chooses the people who will occupy them, without first listening to the Board.
Rosario Bernal, who will replace Carlos Díaz Valcárcel, who retires in mid-December, will have to deal with the intense work being carried out by the Consulate as a result of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.
A diplomat since 1996, she was until now Deputy Director General for Alien Affairs. Rosario Bernal was in one of the carriages of the train that was affected by the terrorist attack perpetrated in March 2016 in the Malbeek metro station in Brussels. At the time, she was on her way to the Spanish Consulate in the Belgian capital, where she was posted as Deputy Consul.
Previously, she had held second posts at the Spanish embassies in Nicaragua, Romania and Kuwait.
For his part, Antonio Álvarez Barthe will fill the vacancy left by José Antonio Hernández Pérez-Solórzano, following his appointment as ambassador to Bucharest.
After having been ambassador to Gabon and the United Arab Emirates, Álvarez Barthe takes charge of a Consulate General that has recently seen a significant increase in its work, as a result of the entry into force of the Law of Democratic Memory, and the numerous applications that are arriving from descendants of Spaniards to request Spanish nationality.
The Undersecretary also announced that Diego Mourelle will occupy the post of ‘number two’ in the Embassy in Nicaragua, which the Minister had also reserved for himself, due to the peculiar situation of relations with Daniel Ortega’s regime.
Mourelle entered the diplomatic career in February 2021 and was assigned to the sub-directorate general for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, which deals with Nicaraguan affairs.
After hearing these names, the Board proposed to the Minister the names for the remaining vacancies, among others, in three Spanish Consulates in France. These are Bordeaux, which will be occupied by José María Ferré, former ambassador to Lebanon and Iraq; Marseilles, which will be occupied by Bernardo de Sicart, former ambassador to Switzerland and Luxembourg; and Perpignan, which will be occupied by Marcelino Cabanas, former ambassador to Cameroon and Nigeria.
He also proposed Pedro Calvo Sotelo, former Spanish ambassador to the Czech Republic, as deputy consul for cultural affairs in New York.
