The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE) will deliberate raising the age limit for diplomats to hold representative posts abroad from 66 to 70 years.
According to data collected by the Associação Sindical dos Diplomatas Portugueses (ASDP), by 2025 they will retirement age 40 ambassadors and ministers plenipotentiary. By the end of this year there will be nine; in 2024 there will be 10 and in 2025 there will be 21 who, according to the applicable law, have to make way for younger ambassadors.
And the generation of 1957, 1958 and 1959. Among them are the names of some career historiessuch as Ana Paula Zacarias, current Ambassador to Portugal’s Permanent Mission to the UN; Domingos Fezas Vital, Ambassador to the Holy See; João Mira Gomes, Bernardo Futsher Pereira or Nuno Brito, ambassadors in Madrid, Italy and England respectively.
Currently, the retirement age for these posts abroad, as in the General Civil Service Act, is 66 years and four monthshowever able to remain employed but in positions with the MNO in Lisbon.
DN asked the Secretary General of the MNO, Ambassador Francisco Ribeiro Telles, who is leading the process of revising the statutes, for information about this process, but did not receive an answer until the end of this edition.
This plan is already causing a lot malaise in the corridors of the ministryespecially among a whole younger generation of diplomats who hoped they could quickly climb the career ladder and be chosen to lead missions abroad.
Joana Gaspar, President of ASDP, is the mouthpiece of this dissatisfaction. “If they want to raise the age limit for placement abroad to 70, that’s fine as long as it applies to everyone.
the union leader refutes the idea that this measure could be to allow ambassadors to stay for another three years with increased compensationsince they are still entitled to allowances for representation, accommodation and for the education of their children when posted abroad.
“These allowances cannot be considered as remuneration, as they serve to pay expenses specific to the functions”, emphasizes Joana Gaspar. O the base salary of an ambassador at the top of the career, after 40 years, is 4 362 euros (to which the pension will correspond), below the 5,000 for the military, the 5,400 for higher education teachers, and the 6,100 for magistrates.
The Ambassador, now retired, Francisco Seixas da Costa, does not understand this plan either. “Everyone knows that there is a limit provided by law. When it came to quality, there were certainly several ambassadors who would have stayed until they were 70 and had to leave. It has always been that way. There was the idea of generation replacement logic”, points out
Diplomatic sources, from the younger generation, heard from DN fear for his career. “The quality and capacity of many of these ambassadors is not in question, but if they don’t go home soon to rest as they deserve, never manages to let the house breathe a little again, allowing younger generations to take leadership positions and renew the boards. That applies externally, but also internally, where you can stay until you are 70 years old or older’, vented one of them.
Another believes that “if it really moves forward, it’s terrible for the new generations” because “when it is already so complicated to make real progress in the diplomatic careermeasures like these only complicate matters”, predicting that “the diplomatic career will lose a lot of people if measures like these are implemented”.
Moreover, this measure is only one of many issues to be decided in the review of the Staff Regulations.
you results of a questionnaire to diplomats, reported by Expresso, which DN also had access to, even show “availability” so that there is no longer “automatic transition to the situation of availability due to age”: 60.4% agree or strongly agree with the abolition of ticket automatic to the situation of availability for reasons arising from age limits; 44.1% disagree or strongly disagree with the abolition of availability status; 61.9% agree or strongly agree with an availability system that allows them to continue assignments abroad.
This survey, conducted by ASDP between June 29 and July 9, with the participation of 31% of the Portuguese diplomatic service and representation of all categories, at different career stages and with different personal circumstances, also showed a consensus on “the inadequacy of the salary scale ( not revised since 1998), as well as the fees earned in the external framework (not revised since 2003)”. Diplomats also disagree with career advancement procedures, which are based solely on seniority, and with the evaluation system.
a Portugal’s diplomatic network extends over 133 posts, of which 76 embassies, 48 consulates and 9 representations and permanent missions. According to the diplomatic portal, our 76 embassies are 29 in Europe, 18 in Africa, 16 in Asia, 12 in America and 1 in Oceania.
Source: DN
