Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has replicated the criticism of the PP accusing said party in the Senate to try to politicize diplomats. “They stop trying to politicize the Ccroanador Íñigo Fernández, who had reproached him that even his own fellow professionals reun its management, referring to the fact that Albares is diplomatic.
The minister has left the counterattack accusing of “exhibiting a list of active diplomatic officials” on the eve of the latest general elections. “They were the ones who were going to take the ministry,” he added. He referred to the diplomat team that the PP leader signed as international policy advisors in March 2023. He has then demanded that the PP apologize for having said that in the Spanish embassy in Caracas (Venezuela) the opposition leader was coerced Edmundo González Urrutia; And he has thrown him in face that during Rajoy’s mandate the salary of the Ministry’s labor personnel would not be created nor will any new jobs be created abroad. “We are reversing the damage they made with their cuts in the foreign service. […] If they are not going to support us, at least they are not hindered, ”he said to the PP.
Instead, he has avoided explaining the reasons why he has decided to relieve “he asks me about the cessation of three ambassadors who at the time I answer are in their positions. Is it jokingly or seriously speak? Indeed, the cessations have not occurred. What the Ministry has done is to request the spin For their respective successors to the authorities of the three countries, which begins the relief process.
In the morning, a delegation of the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE), although the quote have only attended the senators of the Popular Group, while the Socialists have claimed that they had an internal meeting at the same time. At the exit, the president of the Ade, Alberto Virella, has denounced the “helpless” of the diplomats and has claimed the approval of a regulation of the career that, among other aspects, sets the minimum period of permanence term abroad. “The normal thing is four years, not less than three if you have not committed serious lack or infraction and, if you have committed it, that an open and public file is made. What we are having now is helpless, ”he said.
At the general level, the president of the Diplomat Association has assured that in the Ministry “there is arbitrariness, there is fear that reprisals are taken against someone who, if it appears making visible any kind of comment or critical attitude, because it is feared that they can be taken Measures against him Why? Because, even without doing so, they suffer punishment measures. ”
Principles of “Capacity and Merit”
The meeting has been preceded by the controversy caused by the unexpected relay of ambassadors in Croatia, Belgium and South Korea. When their next cessation was informed, at the end of January, González-Barba had been in the position for two years and 10 months; Antón, two years and four months; and Kirkpatrick, two and a half years. The relays were known after González-Barba published an article on the role of the monarchy in foreign policy without requesting permission; Antón was captured by the sleeping cameras when the minister pronounced his speech at the Ambassadors Conference, and Kirkpatrick met with the Madrid president without informing the ministry. Exteriors has disconnected the changes of these facts and has argued that all occur within normality. In addition, he has insisted, none of the cessations have yet been consummated, so ambassadors could have exceeded three years in office when their cessations are published in the BOE.
In addition, Virella has exposed to the senators the “serious problem” that, in his opinion, suffers the consular network, overflowed by the rapid increase in the number of Spaniards who live abroad, which has gone from 900,000 in the year 2000 to three million currently. In Argentina, the country with the largest Spanish colony, the deadline to obtain a passport is already delayed six months and obtaining nationality, seven years, explained. In addition, Virella has requested that aid for the education of the children of officials destined abroad, as many other countries have; and that the priority is applied in equal conditions of the spouses of expatriate officials when accessing jobs of the Spanish administration abroad. He has also claimed that the annual free plane ticket for officials destined abroad that abolished in 2008 as a way to avoid its uprooting.
On January 30, the Adess sent a letter to Minister Albares in which he already asked him to approve “if greater delays” the new regulation of the diplomatic career to ensure that “the principles of equality, merit and capacity” are respected ” in the progression in the professional career and internal progression. In the letter, the association moved “the feeling of personal and professional frustration” of some diplomats “for the absence of objective assessment of their merits” when proceeding to the designation of ambassadors. The letter has not been answered, according to Virella.
