He King Philip VI continues the changes he has introduced in his House throughout this year, in which the tenth anniversary of his reign, with two other new replacements taking effect in early December, according to sources in the Operetta.
After the arrival of Camilo Villarino at the head of the Maison du Roi in March, it will now be the turn of the secretary general Domingo Martinez Pigeonin office since the accession to the throne of Don Felipe, and diplomatic advisor Alfonso Sanz Portoles.
For the two positions, Felipe VI chose two women. Thus, the new Secretary General of the Chamber will be Mercedes Araújo Díaz de Terán, while the diplomatic advisor will be Carmen Castiella. With them, four high positions will be occupied by women at the King’s Household, alongside that of head of the Queen’s Household, Maria Ocanaappointed last April, and the auditor, Ana Varela, appointed in August.
Araújo, current Deputy Secretary General for Parliamentary Affairs of the Congress of Deputies, has been a member of the Corps of Lawyers of the Cortes Generales since 1995. During these years she has held various assistance and advisory positions to the governing bodies of the General Courts lower. House from the VI to the XV legislatures.
As for Castiella, she is currently ambassador to Paraguay. A career diplomat since 1999, she has been assigned to different embassies and advisory positions at the Prime Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in addition to having been director of cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean of the Agency Spanish for international relations. Cooperation (AECID).
DEPARTURE OF TWO VETERANS FROM HOME
Martínez Palomo and Portolés are both veterans of the House of the King, since they both served Juan Carlos I. In the case of the former, he was previously head of the Planning and Coordination Cabinet of the General Secretariat of the House.
For his part, Sanz Portolés joined Zarzuela in 1993, first as second head of the Protocol, since 2000 as head of the Protocol and since 2011 as Secretary General of the Chamber. With the arrival of the current monarch, he became head of the King’s Secretariat Emeritus, finally becoming diplomatic advisor to Felipe VI in June 2019.
With their departure in December, the king will have renewed throughout this year practically all the senior officials of his house, many of whom already worked for Juan Carlos I.
From now on, only the communications director, Jordi Gutierrez, will remain in office since 2014 and who previously worked for a brief period in Zarzuela; the head of Protocol, Bernardo Francisco Lizaur, who entered the Chamber in 2005 and has held this position since 2021; and the head of the Security Service, Miguel Ángel Herráiz, who joined the Security Service in 1998 and was appointed to the current position in 2017.
