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Spanish Foreign Minister Faces Potential Ouster Amid Morocco Diplomatic Crisis
Wednesday 23 June 2021, by
The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Luis Planas, and the current ambassador to France, José Manuel Albares, could join the next government of Pedro Sánchez expected in mid-July. The two personalities are announced at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a possible replacement for Arancha González Laya, whose popularity is at its lowest.
The wind of reshuffling blowing in the Spanish government is likely to sweep away a number of ministers, including Arancha González Laya in charge of Foreign Affairs, who has been heavily criticized in recent times for her "catastrophic" handling of the Brahim Ghali affair and the major diplomatic crisis with Morocco that has resulted from it.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, diplomats see in Planas, former ambassador to Morocco from 2004 to 2010, the ideal profile to succeed Laya and unravel the serious diplomatic crisis with the kingdom. Better yet, he has good experience at the European Union for having been a European deputy and then secretary general of the European Economic and Social Committee. As for Albares, Sánchez’s friend and confidant, he was the latter’s head of diplomacy and it is to him that the Prime Minister entrusted the presentation of the foreign policy that will be approved at the PSOE federal congress in October.
To read: Spanish Foreign Minister’s Approval Plummets Amid Morocco Diplomatic Crisis
Diplomatic sources told Vozpópuli that Minister Laya could lose this portfolio in favor of another. The aim is to give a boost to foreign policy and regain the climate of trust with Morocco. According to the same sources, Laya, an expert in international trade with more than 15 years of experience, could be entrusted with a new Ministry of Commerce and Tourism, after a possible departure of Reyes Maroto and the dissolution of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. The Industry department would return to Nadia Calviño. Laya and Planas could also exchange ministries, the same sources report.
This week, the vote on the resolution against Spain at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, calling for the withdrawal of the extradition request against the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, is also attributed to Laya. "What happened at the Council of Europe against Spain is another serious failure of Spanish diplomacy and its minister Laya," PP senator Rafael Hernando said on social media, describing her as an "incompetent minister." It is a "humiliation of Spanish democracy," the Catalan Civil Society (SCC) said, calling for "dismissals and resignations in the diplomatic corps and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."