Spain has more than a thousand diplomats. Half of them carry out work abroad, in 118 embassies, more than a hundred consulates and nine special missions, which it has all over the world. In addition to the extensive consular network it owns, the state spent € 24 million in 2021 to cover chancellery rent, as well as the diplomatic corps, buildings, offices, garages and storerooms. Which elDiario.es had access to through the Transparency Portal query. A total of 267 properties were leased.
The United States, China, and Russia are the countries where affordable rent for the state is most costly for foreign operations. The first of them in 2021 invested a total of 2.8 million euros in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, as well as a garage in Washington (the embassy is owned by the state). And Spain’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York. This rent was 824 829 euros.
This is the second most expensive. The first is the Moscow Chancellery, where 1.5 million euros were paid. On the opposite side is Accra (Ghana), where the corresponding registered payment for the chancellery and housing was € 562.81.
In China, the figure rises to two million euros at the Canton Consulate (€ 300,000), Hong Kong (€ 229,425 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and € 6,898 for the garage), Shanghai (€ 893,176 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and local) and Beijing. , Where Spain has three buildings for chancellery and / or residence and two buildings totaling € 834,169.
In the case of Afghanistan, the rent for the chancellery and residence in 2021 was € 375,400 before leaving the country due to the advance of the Taliban. No return to Kabul is planned yet, but Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares assured elDiario.es in an interview that he would be ready to return the ambassador if security conditions were met.
The bulk of the rent corresponds to the foreign offices and residences of diplomacy. The document sent by the Directorate General of Foreign Affairs in this letter states that three of them correspond to the houses of officials (Algeria and Lagos). However, there are also ten defined as “attachment offices” – half of them in Havana -, five buildings (one in Havana, another in Oran, two in Beijing and one in Shanghai) and a storehouse in Geneva, corresponding to the Spanish representation. Before the International Labor Organization.
Source: El Diario
