Diplomat Diego Martínez Belío, chief of staff and right-hand man of Minister José Manuel Albares, will be the new Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs; while Fernando Sampedro Marcos, member of the Cabinet of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, will head the post of EU Foreign Minister; and the Socialist representative for Zaragoza Susana Sumelzo will be Secretary of State for Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain in the World, according to government sources.
This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers will complete the renewal of the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which began on December 5 with the appointment of Eva Granados Galiano as the new Secretary of State for International Cooperation. The sources consulted assure that the aim of the renewal – which affects the entire management of the ministry, with the exception of the Undersecretary Luis Cuesta – is to open a new stage after the peak of the Spanish EU Presidency.
To achieve this goal, Albares wanted to surround himself with a team he trusted most and put a diplomat very close to him and three socialist leaders at the head of the ministry. As before, parity between men and women in the office of state secretaries will be maintained.
Albares wanted to reward his chief of staff, who has become his shadow since taking office in July 2021, but without alienating him from his side, as giving him a message would have meant. He was born in Huesca in 1977 and graduated in law. In 2007 he began his diplomatic career and worked at the Spanish Embassy in Equatorial Guinea and at the Consulate in Casablanca (Morocco). Since February 2020, he was Director of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for the EU and previously a technical advisor and advisory member of the Directorate for European Affairs and G20 in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government, where Albares was then Secretary General. As Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, he will be the de facto number two in Spanish diplomacy.
Fernando Sampedro, the new Secretary of State for the EU, is a member of the PSOE (he heads the Secretariat for European Affairs and Electoral Actions of the party's European umbrella organization) and is very familiar with Community politics as a member of Von der Leyen's Cabinet was responsible for the Commission's relations to the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Council.
The new Foreign Minister for Latin America, Susana Zumelzo, is also a PSOE leader. A law graduate, she has been a congresswoman for Zaragoza since 2011 and was previously a senator since 2008. She was Secretary for Public Administration and Local Policy in the Socialist Executive as well as President of the Joint Congress-Senate Commission for the EU and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
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The head of the Cabinet of Ministers left vacant by the promotion of Diego Martínez Belío will be occupied by Sergio Cuesta, the current ambassador to Haiti, who also coincided with Albares in La Moncloa. The sources consulted emphasize that both the appointment of the latter and that of the new heads of foreign and EU departments correspond to a “meritocracy”, since the promotion represents a recognition of the work done.
Likewise, Albares has so far rewarded his foreign ministers with messages at the highest level. Vice Foreign Minister Ángeles Moreno becomes the new ambassador to Washington; the EU member, Pascual Navarro, will go to Berlin; and Juan Fernández Trigo from Latin America to Lisbon. According to eldiario.es and confirmed by EL PAÍS, Marta Betanzos will be the new ambassador in Beijing, making it the first time that two women will occupy embassies of such importance as those of the United States and China. To date, the most important message by a woman was that of Germany by María Victoria Morera in 2017-18.
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