Albares upsets diplomats for appointing a protégé of Jorge Moragas as ambassador

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has stirred up a good part of the diplomatic corps for appointing a former collaborator and personal friend of Jorge Moragas as ambassador, as Vozpópuli has learned. This is Álvaro Renedo, appointed ambassador to Albania by the Council of Ministers this week.

Renedo (Burgos, 1980) was one of Moragas's closest collaborators in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government during the mandate of Mariano Rajoy (2011-2018). Also from Jorge Toledo, Secretary of State for European Affairs with the PP. During this stage, Renedo directed the Department of European Affairs and G20 in La Moncloa. Moragas is currently the Spanish ambassador to the Philippines. Toledo is ambassador to Japan.

One of the criticisms that has been made internally is Renedo's scant foreign baggage. Albania is not an easy destination for Spanish diplomacy, because it has the Kosovo dispute on its agenda. Spain has not yet officially recognized this territory, despite pressure from some of our main allies to do so.

Albania and little experience

The new ambassador in Albania entered the diplomatic career in 2007. According to the reference of the Council of Ministers, his only experience in an embassy has been as consul in Algiers, where he was stationed since August last year.

In addition to the Cabinet of the Presidency, Renedo has been attached to the General Director of General Affairs and Policy Coordination of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and Head of Area and Head of Service in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for the European Union.

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Albares' honeymoon with the Ministry after his landing to replace Arancha González Laya is fading little by little. The current minister was received as "May water", according to some sources, after the "erratic management" of Laya and his team.

However, Albares has made some controversial appointments. And he too has pushed through controversial layoffs. One of the most notorious was that of Fernando Fernández-Arias, who was fired from the position of director general of the United Nations, International Organizations and Human Rights at the beginning of October.

The head of Foreign Affairs has also had to deal with the accusation of Camilo Villarino, former chief of staff of Laya, for the Brahim Ghali case. Villarino is a well-liked diplomat on the run and has received public support from the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE).

The challenges of Albares

This newspaper has recently reported on how La Moncloa has wrested control of the semester of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which will take place between July and December 2023. The Presidency of the Government has created a Coordination Office to the Spanish Presidency of the European Union based in La Moncloa. Sánchez has placed the diplomat Aurora Mejía as director of this office, who until now headed the European Union department within the President's Cabinet.

Sources consulted by Vozpópuli have interpreted this movement as a coup by Sánchez against Albares to directly control everything related to the semester of the Spanish presidency. Albares recovered the general secretariat of the EU –with the rank of undersecretary-, in which he put Pascual Ignacio Navarro in charge. According to Albares, this secretariat, disappeared from the Ministry during the last decade, had as its main objective to coordinate the preparatory work for the Spanish presidency.

The head of Foreign Affairs assumed the portfolio in July with the fundamental mission of putting out the most serious diplomatic fire in Spain in recent years. The crisis with Morocco is still in the process of being resolved, but it is progressing very slowly. Among other reasons due to the clash between Morocco and Algeria, which threatens the gas that Spain receives via the Maghreb.