Embassy allocation has always been a Reason for conflict within the Foreign Ministrybut in recent times the complaints of experienced diplomats are piled up and point to a real internal storm for the minister José Manuel Albares. Especially after anonymous protests has joined the Association of Diplomats of Spain (ADE), the majority organization that encompasses 70% of the almost 1,000 Spanish career diplomats.
“Estimated Minister: The Anside has been interested in the selection procedure of the people who are going to occupy the mission leaders. It is an issue that professionally affects us in a very direct and important way for the external action of the State, ”reads a directed letter from this Thursday to José Manuel Albaresadvanced by the ABC newspaper and the one that has had access to this newspaper. They indirectly reproach the lack of objectivity and transparency in the appointments of ambassadors. “From the Ade we do not pronounce, obviously, on the Professional value of the selected candidates In this year’s call, whose resolution is not formally published. But we understand that criticisms of the development of this process, and The feeling of personal and professional frustration that some of our associates have sent us because of the absence of objective assessment of their merits would not be such if there were a more regulated procedure that the one that currently exists, ”adds the letter.
They ask to be able to have a system that regulates this type of appointments as the one with the European external action service, for example. “Everything is centralized and goes far beyond a situation of discretion that we as public officials assume as normal: what we find is a situation of arbitrariness“, says in conversation with the newspaper of Spain, Alberto Virellanew president since last December of the Ade. “I do not like to talk about the concept of horror within the race, because it reminds me of the guillotine and also serves to cause the silence of the diplomats. What which Yes there is fear. Very deep fear“.
Most of the deputy director did not get a mission manager last year, Virella explains: “And we were watching for the information that has been filtered to the relay press in the embassies that this year this year The same could happen. We do not have a public and official list of which are the new ambassadors, but it was time to transfer the minister that we do not believe that he is working rationally This organization “.
The Foreign Ministry has refused to comment on this newspaper on this matter.
A regulation of the race that never arrives
The ADE puts the focus on the regulation of the race, which is still not approved a decade after it began to be processed. He continues in “Phase of Study” and without an estimated date of approval, as published by the newspaper of Spain last June. Despite having a proposal already approved by the Miisterium, it is “waiting to know better the concrete changes of the Public Function Law, which entered into force on December 21, 2023 ”, according to the Office of Diplomatic Information of the Foreign Ministry. “For this reason, there is no estimated date for approval.”
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, during the VIII Conference of Ambassadors, January 10, 2024, in Madrid. / Alejandro Martínez Vélez
“In our opinion, the selection process that has been applied in recent years is weighed by the absence of an updated regulation that regulates it in detail,” reads the letter of the Ade to the minister. “We do not have precise norms in force On classification of the categories of diplomatic missions, foreseeable duration of the performance of the position, concrete merits to be evaluated for each of them, relief that is given to the previous performance of management positions in the MinistryProcedure for consultation and participation of the main responsible of the Ministry in the process of selecting candidates, the elaboration of candidates, or the realization of interviews for their selection, among other aspects ”.
Frency of Albares Appointments
The Final power to name a diplomat To a mission abroad falls to the Minister, prior approval of the Council of Ministers. There are “political” appointments, decided by the minister or the president of the Government with people from outside the race. Others are at the will of the Minister but with personnel within the Ministry. And there is also an internal merit system, called “In the heap”, in which diplomats can present and ask for places. Minister is presented to a candidate tenderand he has the last word.
Last year’s embabombo was already very diminished because Albares named many “finger” ambassadors, outside that more objective system. The beginning of the legislature lived an authentic Frency of appointments. In the first two and a half months, the Foreign Minister appointed 27 mission leaders outside the embabombo, as this newspaper said.
Since then, the internal situation has worsened, with dismissals that have caused doubts within the race. The last one has been the alleged cessation of Alberto AntónAmbassador of Spain in Brussels, advanced by The Objective but not confirmed by the Ministry. Previously, it was the cessation of Juan González-Barba as an ambassador to Croatia after only three years in the position and just after publishing a letter in the confidential on the role of King Felipe VI in Spanish foreign policy. Or the output of Javier Benos as head of the Office for Gibraltar after another tribune in the world criticizing the “diplomatic silence” about the amnesty to Catalan leaders.
