The new ambassador to the United States from Spain is a career diplomat who has previously served in the U.S. and whose career has been tied to the political fortunes of Spain’s right-of-center political party, the People’s Party (PP), which won Spain’s most recent national elections in 2011. Appointed to his post in Washington in April 2012, Ramón Gil-Casares Satrústegui, currently Spanish ambassador to Sudan and South Sudan, replaces Ambassador Jorge Dezcallar, who has held the post in Washington since July 2008.

Born in Madrid on October 26, 1953, Gil-Casares was the son of a Franco-era diplomat and a childhood friend of former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, who was a classmate at the Colegio Santa María del Pilar, a private school in Madrid, until age 14. Gil-Casares earned an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Law at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1982.

Gil-Casares joined the Spanish Foreign Service in 1982, and had early career postings at the Spanish embassies in Equatorial Guinea, Uruguay and the Philippines. In 1990 he was appointed Deputy Director General of Cooperatives at the Spanish Institute for Development Cooperation, and later was deputy consul general of Spain in New York. In May 1996, he was named Director of the International Security Department in Prime Minister Aznar’s cabinet, and later also served as secretary of the Foreign Policy Council, a body formed in July 2000 to coordinate the activities of different ministries and agencies abroad. Gil-Casares became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in July 2002, serving until the April 19, 2004, election victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, which ousted Aznar’s PP from power.

In July 2005, the new Spanish government sent Gil-Casares to serve as ambassador to South Africa, residing in Pretoria with concurrent accreditation to the Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar and Lesotho. Gil-Casares stayed in Africa for his next posting as ambassador to Sudan, where he has served since March 25, 2011; he also became the first Spanish ambassador to South Sudan on January 20, 2012, although he remained based in Khartoum. Additionally, he served from October 2008 to March 2011 as an advisor to the Foreign Ministry’s Directorate General for Africa.

-Matt Bewig

Ramón Gil-Casares, embajador en EE. UU. (Heraldo)

Ramón Gil-Casares, nuevo embajador en Estados Unidos (by José Ángel Jarne Navalón, EPCPC)

Gil Casares será embajador en EE. UU. y Eduardo Gutiérrez, en el Vaticano (by Luis Ayllón, ABC.es)