Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has appointed two new second-in-command officials for Spain's embassies in Morocco and Algeria, La Razón reports. Álvaro Ortega, currently stationed in Algiers, and Pedro Jiménez Nácher, coordinator at Spain's Permanent Representation to the European Union (REPER), will take up their respective posts in Rabat and Algiers starting in August. The appointments, set to be made official in April, involve positions classified as «freely appointed», meaning they are directly assigned by the minister. These postings, requested by the diplomats themselves, have been generally well received within Spanish diplomatic circles, which in recent years have been at odds with the ministry's policy directions. Pedro Jiménez Nácher, who is three years away from retirement, previously served as ambassador to Latvia from 2014 to 2018. Álvaro Ortega, from the same cohort as Albares, has prior experience in Rabat and formerly held the role of Deputy Director-General of Political Affairs, a key position within the ministry. His father also served as ambassador to Morocco and as Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs. This diplomatic reshuffle in the two major Maghreb capitals comes amid a highly sensitive regional context. Tensions between Algiers and Rabat have escalated in recent months, with an ongoing arms race between the two neighboring countries. The Spanish government's 2022 decision to support Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara triggered a crisis with Algiers, a longtime backer of the Polisario Front. However, recent high-level diplomatic exchanges suggest a possible thaw in relations between Spain and Algeria.
