Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil summoned the Venezuelan ambassador to Spain for consultations this Thursday night, following the remarks of the Spanish Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, who, during the presentation of Julia Navarro’s novel “The Boy Who Lost the War”, this Thursday at the Ateneo de Madrid, spoke of “the men and women of Venezuela who have had to leave their country, precisely because of the dictatorship in which they live.”
What does “call for information” mean?
The Panhispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish explains that a call for consultations is an order sent to a head of a diplomatic mission by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the accrediting state to appear urgently to report on a certain matter and receive specific instructions.
Thus, the highest representative of Venezuelan diplomacy in Spain must return to Caracas immediately after being summoned by her ministry. The absence could last days, months or years.
During the absence of the ambassador, the chargé d’affaires would be responsible for the embassy. interim, a diplomatic official who would temporarily replace the head of the mission. Diplomatic representation would therefore decrease.
So when a country calls its ambassador for consultations, it can be a preliminary step to breaking off diplomatic relations.
The Venezuelan government decided to summon Ambassador Gladys Gutiérrez for consultations after Robles’ statements, which Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil described as “rude” and “interference.”
Summons to a foreign ambassador
In addition, the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Ramón Santos Martínez, was summoned this Friday, September 13, to the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This decision comes amid growing tension between the two countries, exacerbated after the non-law proposal approved this Wednesday by the Congress of Deputies, with the votes of the right, in which the government is invited to recognize the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia as the “elected and legitimate president” of Venezuela.
The summoning of an ambassador, as Venezuela has now done with that of Spain in Caracas, occurs when the corresponding Foreign Ministry physically forces an ambassador from another country to go to its headquarters to express a complaint.
When ambassadors visit the ministry, the complaint may be conveyed to them verbally or through a document (called a “note verbale”), among other forms.
Diplomas in diplomatic relations
There are different degrees of “abnormality” in diplomatic relations, such as convocation, call for consultations and withdrawal of powers. These concepts reflect quite different situations.
On the scale of diplomatic protest measures, the call for consultations is one level below the definitive withdrawal of the ambassador and the severance of diplomatic relations.
