Spanish diplomat Javier Colomina will finally be NATO’s Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood, according to the announcement made on Tuesday by the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg. The appointment of this post, whose creation was agreed at the recent NATO summit in Washington, has been the subject of a tough standoff with Italy, which last week did not hide its displeasure when the decision was leaked.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had assumed that the post would be for an Italian, and her permanent representative to NATO handed Stoltenberg a letter of protest in which she expressed her “great surprise and disappointment” at a decision that, she added, had not been the subject of “adequate consultation with the Allies.” Italy intended to postpone the election until October 31, when former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will take over as General Secretary of the Alliance. However, Stoltenberg did not want to delay the appointment and has appointed the Spanish diplomat, who is part of his most trusted team.
Colomina, whose appointment was anticipated by The vanguard, Since 2021, he has been NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy and the Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia. Between 2017 and 2021, he was Deputy Permanent Representative at the Spanish Embassy to the organization. Before that, he had worked at the Spanish embassies in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Damascus and at the UN in New York.
“The Middle East, North Africa and Sahel regions are important to our Alliance. Javier Colomina has extensive experience in dealing with NATO partners. His appointment will further strengthen NATO’s important work in the south,” Stoltenberg said in announcing his decision.
For the government in Rome, the decision of the current NATO Secretary General is a “betrayal”, in the words of Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto. “I wrote a very harsh message to Stoltenberg,” revealed the minister, after it became known that the Spanish diplomat had been chosen. “It made me furious and there will be consequences in terms of personal relations. His was a betrayal of a principle: it was Italy that had fought to introduce the role of envoy for the Southern flank,” added Crosetto.
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
Spanish government sources, on the other hand, maintain that Spain has been pushing for years for NATO to pay more attention to its southern flank, and this was made clear at the Madrid summit in 2022; and they add that Italy is already represented in the highest echelons of the organisation, as shown by the fact that an Italian admiral, Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, is the new president of the Alliance’s Military Committee. According to the same sources, Meloni’s discomfort is explained by the setbacks he has suffered in his efforts to assert his weight in the EU institutions, which led MEPs from his party, Brothers of Italy, to vote against the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission.
As NATO’s Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood, Colomina will be responsible for implementing the Action Plan “for a stronger, more strategic and results-oriented approach towards our southern neighbourhood, which will be updated periodically,” as agreed in Washington by the heads of state and government of the 32 allied countries. “We will strengthen our dialogue, our outreach, our visibility and our existing cooperation instruments, such as the Defence Capacity Building Initiative, the Centre for the Southern Neighbourhood, and the NATO-led Action Plan for the Southern Neighbourhood, which will be updated periodically.” [con sede en Nápoles, Italia] and the NATO-ICI Regional Centre [Iniciativa de Cooperación de Estambul por sus siglas en inglés] in Kuwait,” the statement added.
Although Spain and Italy are most concerned about the situation in the Sahel, Washington’s statement does not specifically mention this region, unlike Jordan, where NATO plans to open a liaison office in Amman, or Iraq, where the tasks of the allied mission to advise the Iraqi authorities (NMI), commanded by a Spanish general, will be expanded, despite the foreseeable withdrawal of US troops from the country.
At a time when EU and UN military forces have withdrawn from the Sahel, leaving a vacuum that is being filled by Russia, the aim is to move from merely providing theoretical advice to countries such as Jordan, Tunisia and Mauritania to drawing up plans to train local armies to combat jihadist terrorism. This should involve, military sources explain, not only the training of their troops, but also the transfer of equipment and weapons, as is already being done with Ukraine.
We welcome the appointment of Spaniard Javier Colomina as Special Representative @BORN for the Southern Neighborhood.
Spain has led the southern flank presence in the Strategic Concept, and the Alliance’s increased commitment and cooperation with the region.https://t.co/hbZ4jske8O
— José Manuel Albares (@jmalbares) July 23, 2024
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares welcomed the appointment in a message on the social network X (formerly Twitter), adding: “Spain has led the presence of the Southern flank in the Strategic Concept, and the Alliance’s greater commitment and cooperation with the region.”