Marina Pina
Updated Tuesday, March 12, 2024-10:46
Foreign Affairs Albares reserves 11 personal appointments: fight for Catalan in Europe and Morocco as priorities
The Council of Ministers is going to approve this Tuesday the appointment of
three diplomats
to occupy two embassies.
This is the starting position in
Senegal
,
Guatemala
and
Austria
.
And those chosen are women from the Diplomatic Corps with extensive experience abroad.
As EL MUNDO has learned, these are
Aurora Mejía
(Austria),
Clara Girbau
(Guatemala) and
Dolores Ríos
(Senegal).
Both the positions in Guatemala and Senegal were already occupied by women, so the number of ambassadors only
increased by one,
still representing a minority of female presence in the highest position of Spanish representation.
Of the 128 delegations that Spain has around the world, from today
32
will be headed by diplomats, which represents 2.5% of the total race.
To know more
Exteriors.
Albares reserves 11 personal appointments: fight for Catalan in Europe and Morocco as priorities
Editorial: MARINA PINA Madrid
Albares reserves 11 personal appointments: fight for Catalan in Europe and Morocco as priorities
This is a non-representative figure, since women make up
15% of the total
members of the diplomatic corps.
If the trend continues as in recent years, in a short time there will be more women than men in diplomatic careers.
Thus, the 2020-2021 promotion was the first equal promotion in history, while the two that followed it, more women than men entered (60% in 2021-2022 and 57.14% in 2022-2023).
The three new ambassadors belong to promotions where being a woman was almost an exception.
The oldest in the Corps is
Aurora Mejía,
who entered the Diplomatic Career in 1987 and until now was director of the Coordination Office for the Spanish Presidency of the EU in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government, where she came from the direction of the Department of the European Union in the same Cabinet.
She arrives in Austria after extensive experience abroad and after having been an ambassador in other countries.
She was on a special mission for the Promotion of Gender Equality Policies (2007-2008), also in
Bosnia
and
Herzegovina
(2012-2015).
She has been Ambassador on Special Mission for
Afghanistan
and
Pakistan
(2015-2016), Deputy Director General of Security (2016-2018) and Director General of Western, Central and Southeastern Europe (2018-2020), at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , European Union and Cooperation.
She has been posted at the Spanish Embassies in Romania, Denmark and Brazil, as well as at the Permanent Representation of Spain to NATO.
Dolores Ríos
will now represent Spain in Dakar after having held relevant positions around the world.
The new ambassador was until 2022 in
Cape Verde
and has served in the Spanish embassies in Bolivia, Colombia, Namibia, Paraguay, Mexico and Ecuador, where she has held different positions such as consul, consul general, cultural advisor, political and cooperation advisor and second leadership.
In Madrid she has worked in development cooperation at the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and in Justice and Home Affairs matters at the Secretary of State of the European Union.
Clara Girbau
entered the diplomatic career in 1998 and until now worked as coordinating advisor at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Union, in charge of the working groups on relations with Africa (COAFR) and ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Peaceful).
She held the second leadership of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
and
Mauritania
.
She also served as a counselor at the Embassy in Luxembourg and at the Permanent Representation of Spain to NATO.
She worked in Brussels in special services at the EU External Action Service.
In central services, she held various positions in the field of relations with North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and was appointed Ambassador on Special Mission to promote Equality and Conciliation policies between 2018 and 2020.