Historical Pact representative David Racero presented a bill that seeks to professionalize the Colombian foreign service. The initiative imposes restrictions on the positions of ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions and reserves them exclusively for career civil servants.
The project aims to increase the minimum proportion of ambassadors who are part of the diplomatic career from 20% to 80%, with the aim of reducing the proportion of freely appointed and removed positions and thus strengthening the Foreign Service.
“Regardless of the president, this bill makes it a state policy and brings it to the highest levels of foreign service standards such as Brazil, where 90% of ambassadors have diplomatic careers.”
According to Racero, currently 20% of ambassadors come from diplomatic backgrounds and 80% are freely appointed. He assured that it is necessary to “reverse this equation” and that merit is the main basis for access to these positions.
“This project is primarily about merit and not just about the criteria of the ruler in power. This would be realized through public competition aimed at preventing criteria other than these criteria from determining entry, persistence and career advancement,” the congressman said.
The text stipulates that 20% of the total diplomatic missions could be designated by the President of the Republic and the remaining 80% would be reserved for professional diplomatic and consular officials.
It also states that these 20% of freely appointed representatives must meet four minimum requirements:
1. Be a native of Colombia and do not have dual nationality.
2. You must have a university degree from a university.
3. Have your military situation defined.
4. Speak and write in a language other than Spanish for diplomatic purposes.
In addition, in cities such as Miami, New York and Madrid, unnecessary spending, according to the representative, will be reduced. These costs include the rent of apartments, driver service, fuel, representation costs and cleaning of the apartments.
