His colleagues and several of his bosses describe Camilo Villarino as “a discreet man”, “extremely professional and hard-working” and “with a great sense of responsibility and duty”. This career diplomat who will replace Jaime Alfonsín at the head of the King’s House has served as Chief of Staff to three very diverse Foreign Ministers and to the High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security of the EU, Josep Borrell, at a key moment for the Union. He now begins a new stage at the service of Felipe VI at a crucial time for the Spanish Monarchy. “The King is not wrong with this appointment: he leaves me without a Chief of Staff, but he is going to occupy a very important position, there are higher-order considerations,” Borrell, with whom he worked in Foreign Affairs between 2018 and 2019, remarks by phone. from 2022, in Brussels. “He is a deeply loyal person,” also explains Arancha González Laya, whom he later served.
Villarino, married with three daughters, ended up in the community capital for a carom. Or perhaps because of diplomatic games. González Laya had appointed him ambassador to Moscow in 2021. He would have occupied the diplomatic legation in a turbulent situation: in February 2022, Vladimir Putin launched the large-scale invasion of Ukraine and toppled the European security architecture, changing it forever along the way. relations with Russia. But José Manuel Albares, Laya’s successor – in addition to judicial complications arising from the visit to Spain of the Sahrawi leader Brahim Ghali – did not endorse the appointment and Villarino ended up leaving for the Foreign Action Service. From there, in 2022, he took Borrell back, once more as Chief of Staff.
He has also been stationed in Zagreb (Croatia), Washington (USA) and Rabat (Morocco). The head of European diplomacy describes him as a “royal Aragonese”. An officer in the voluntary reserve of the Army with the rank of Captain, Borrell says that Villarino spends part of his vacation every summer “fulfilling his military duties and responsibilities”; He is currently assigned to the Military Emergency Unit Headquarters (UME). “He is someone very loyal, extraordinarily responsible. For me he is someone I can trust completely,” says the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy.
Normally, the chiefs of staff change with the ministers, each appointing someone like-minded, a new right-hand man. However, the Catalan socialist decided to keep Villarino, who had worked with Alfonso Dastis (appointed by the Popular Party with the Government of Mariano Rajoy). Borrell and Villarino had coincided at times during the crisis of the secessionist referendum in Catalonia, in 2017.
Former Minister Dastis, who has been key in his career and with whom he was his right-hand man in several functions, describes him as “a person of great value.” “In the EU he is someone who has demonstrated knowledge of him from the first moment. And he has shown his qualities by serving, following me, other district ministers of political color,” he says by phone. “He is a fantastic signing,” says the former Foreign Minister between 2016 and 2018. “He is someone in whom you can have complete confidence and proven fidelity. He has a very wide range of competence,” he adds. As his successors, Dastis highlights his “sense of duty” and also his great capacity for resolution.
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The former minister with the Rajoy Government remembers that it was Villarino, then assigned as Antici (a key position in the representation of Spain to the EU) who, when a fire broke out in the Representation in 2002, “took command and organized everything” that day. In that fire, which coincided with the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU, two people died. “Camilo [Villarino] “He is someone of great competence and ability,” adds Dastis.
González Laya, minister between 2020 and 2021 and currently dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po, also kept him in the position. “She is someone who gives her all in her work and who does it with great seriousness,” she points out on the phone, she is the former minister. “Proof of loyalty is that he has served governments of all types with professionalism. “It is a great choice for a position in which diplomatic skills, loyalty and work are needed,” González Laya points out. “He is a little-known person, but in his new position he does not have to be known, but very effective,” he adds.
The former minister remembers the sleepless nights and the eternal days of the worst moments of the coronavirus pandemic, when Foreign Affairs tried to repatriate thousands of Spaniards blocked in different parts of the world by border closures, while the world was reeling, and the The government and its ministry tried to get vaccines and masks night and day. “There was not a single moment in which it was not available, and we also had to continue with external action because the world did not stop working. He was of enormous support to me,” says González Laya.
Someone he met at Foreign Affairs and also at one of his posts in Brussels describes him as “very familiar,” also as Catholic and “somewhat conservative.” “Some describe him as a little uptight, but he’s just very firm. And he has a great sense of humor, a certain reticence,” he says. Several of his colleagues in the Foreign Action Service (EEAS) say that he is “a great team player” and very willing to listen to all voices to resolve crises.
Villarino also had great experience in European issues, Borrell highlights. Graduated in Law, he has a diploma from the College of Europe and has been through the Spanish permanent representation in Brussels in several stages. Furthermore, he was part of the Foreign Affairs team in charge of negotiating the new EU treaties. During that journey he met the diplomat Dastis, who would end up calling him as Chief of Staff when Rajoy appointed him Minister.
In the ecosystem of the Brussels bubble, where he returned in 2021 so as not to be left in a foreign corner following his appointment to Moscow fell apart, he is also described as “reserved” and “sensible.” Unlike other Chiefs of Staff – such as that of Ursula von der Leyen – he is someone little known, who stays at the EEAS headquarters and does not usually go on trips with Borrell. “You don’t see someone with his own agenda,” says a high-ranking community source.
Luis Simón, director of the Elcano Royal Institute Office in Brussels, who knows the new head of the King’s Household, also agrees that Villarino’s appointment was “successful.” Especially because of his European profile. “The position of Chief of Staff to the High Representative gives you a unique perspective into the kitchen of European and global politics, having to navigate the crossroads between the Commission, the Council, the European External Service and the Member States; and be involved in the front row of the main global debates, with direct dialogue with the main powers,” he points out. “It is an ideal perspective and experience to assume one of the most relevant positions in the Spanish foreign action ecosystem,” he adds.
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