{"id":14097,"date":"2026-05-05T04:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/14097\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T04:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T04:46:09","slug":"top-eu-diplomatic-official-to-leave-brussels-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/14097\/","title":{"rendered":"Top EU diplomatic official to leave Brussels \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Spanish official, who has worked in the EEAS since 2010, took over as secretary general in February last year. She succeeded Italy\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/stefano-sannino-european-commission-fraud-probe-european-external-action-service\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/stefano-sannino-european-commission-fraud-probe-european-external-action-service\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stefano Sannino, who is under investigation for alleged misuse of EU funds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the officials said Carbonell is set to take a posting in Latin America. Carbonell\u2019s husband, Ra\u00fal Fuentes Milani, is the EU\u2019s ambassador to the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n<p>In October last year, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas\u2019 team created a new senior role in the service that saw some of Carbonell\u2019s most important duties transferred <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/martin-selmayr-european-external-action-service-diplomacy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to a deputy<\/a>, including representing the EEAS at meetings with governments and ambassadors.<\/p>\n<p>Martin Selmayr, who was chief of staff to former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, was the favorite to take the influential new post. However, opposition from the top of the European Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/inside-martin-selmayr-conclave-of-catastrophe\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/inside-martin-selmayr-conclave-of-catastrophe\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sank his bid<\/a>. Kallas instead appointed a fellow Estonian, Matti Maasikas, to oversee relations with ambassadors, in an arrangement one official described as \u201ctemporary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the diplomats said Carbonell had\u00a0had\u00a0to walk a tightrope between competing interests in the EEAS and European Commission. \u201cShe\u2019s doing her best,\u201d said the diplomat.<\/p>\n<p>A European official, meanwhile, said of Carbonell\u2019s departure that \u201cit\u2019s not clear if she\u2019s leaving because she wants to but I don\u2019t think she\u2019s been treated very well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked to confirm the move, an EU official speaking on behalf of the EEAS said: \u201cBel\u00e9n is the secretary-general of the EEAS, currently on mission with the HRVP [Kallas] in Armenia for the [European Political Community] and EU-Armenia summit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the European Commission declined to comment further, and Carbonell did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spanish official, who has worked in the EEAS since 2010, took over as secretary general in February&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[248,4358,18,9572,490,347,9573,9574,428,9575],"class_list":{"0":"post-14097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-americas","9":"tag-armenia","10":"tag-brussels","11":"tag-dominican-republic","12":"tag-dumping-duties","13":"tag-foreign-policy","14":"tag-jean-claude-juncker","15":"tag-martin-selmayr","16":"tag-missions","17":"tag-stefano-sannino"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116520156228817086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}