The EU has named Jan Tombiński to be its ambassador to Ukraine, the most significant change in an annual rotation of heads of delegation.

In all, the EU’s foreign service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), named 15 new ambassadors and two deputy heads of delegation.

Tombiński was until now Poland’s permanent representative to the EU and he was the diplomat responsible for the day-to-day operations of Poland’s six-month presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers in the second half of 2011.

His outspoken predecessor, Manuel Pinto Teixeira of Portugal, moves from Ukraine, a country of 45.6 million people, to head the EU’s delegation in Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony with a population of 492,000.

Yuri Sterk, Bulgaria’s ambassador to Israel, moves to Uzbekistan, to head a new EU delegation. With a population of 29 million, Uzbekistan is the second most populous country affected by the changes.

The delegation in another large country, Malaysia, will be headed by Luc Vandebon, a Belgian who previously served as a counsellor in the EU’s mission to Afghanistan.

Vandebon replaces Vincent Piket, a Dutch member of the EEAS, who will now lead the EU’s office in Hong Kong.

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The heads of delegation have been changed in four countries in north Africa and the Middle East.
 
Adam Kulach, the senior Polish diplomat responsible for north African affairs, will now head the delegation in Saudi Arabia, a country in which he has previously served. Laura Baeza, the Spanish head of delegation in Algeria, takes up the same position in Tunisia. Her post in Algiers is taken by Marek Skolil, a director-general in the Czech foreign ministry responsible for economic relations. The new head of delegation in Yemen is Bettina Muscheidt, a German who was a political officer on the Afghanistan desk in the EEAS. 

Fact File

Heads of delegation

Algeria: Marek Skolil (Czech Republic, national diplomat)

Barbados: Mikael Barfod (Dane, from the European Commission)

Bolivia: Timothy Torlot (UK, national diplomat)

Cape Verde: Manuel Pinto Teixeira (Portugal, EEAS)

Chile: Rafael Dochao Moreno (Spain, EEAS)

China (Hong Kong): Vincent Piket (Netherlands, EEAS)

Malaysia: Luc Vandebon (Belgium, EEAS)

Montenegro: Mitja Drobnic (Slovenia, national diplomat)

Saudi Arabia: Adam Kulach (Poland, national diplomat)

Somalia (based in Kenya): Michele Cervone d’Urso (Italy, EEAS)

Timor-Leste: Sylvie Tabesse (France, European Commission)

Tunisia: Laura Baeza (Spain, EEAS)

Ukraine: Jan Tombiński (Poland, national dipomat)

Uzbekistan: Yuri Sterk (Bulgaria, national diplomat)

Deputy head of delegation

Afghanistan: Alfred Grannas (Germany, national diplomat)

Switzerland: Dominic Porter (UK, EEAS)

Muscheidt replaces Michele Cervone d’Urso, an Italian, who will now serve as a Nairobi-based envoy to Somalia.

Bolivia will now be the responsibility of Timothy Torlot, who was the UK’s ambassador to Yemen.

Mitja Drobnic swaps the post of Slovenia’s ambassador to Germany for a posting in Montenegro.

The other three top positions will be occupied by officials promoted from the EEAS and the European Commission.

Rafael Dochao Moreno, a Spaniard who was the charge d’affaires of the EU’s delegation to Cambodia, will lead the delegation in Chile.

Sylvie Tabesse, a Frenchwoman who was head of operations in the Mozambique delegation, will serve in Timor-Leste, while Mikael Barfod, a Dane, will move from a post as head of unit in the European Commission’s development department to Barbados.

In all, three women were appointed to lead missions, while five of the seven heads of delegation appointed from national diplomatic services come from countries that joined the EU in 2004 or 2007. The EEAS has previously been criticised for not having more women and central and eastern Europeans in senior posts.

Two deputy heads of delegation were named. Alfred Grannas, a German diplomat, will depute for Vygaudas Ušackas of Lithuania in Afghanistan. Dominic Porter will be the understudy of another Briton, Richard Jones, in Switzerland.