Gilles Tonelli, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, received HE Pieter de Gooijer, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; HE Patricia O’Brien, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ireland and HE Fernando Carderera Soler, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Spain, at a luncheon on Monday, October 30.
The three newly appointed representatives had presented their credentials to the Sovereign Prince in the morning.
Mr de Gooijer joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) in 1982, where he rose through the ranks to successively occupy the posts of Director of Political Affairs, Director of European Integration and Director General of Political Affairs. From 1985 to 1988, he was also First Secretary of the Embassy for Commercial Affairs in the Netherlands and Turkey.
Ms O’Brien, a lawyer by training, pursued a legal career before joining the position of Director of Legal Affairs at the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union in Brussels in 1998. She was appointed Senior Legal Counsel to the Attorney General in Dublin in 2002, and Director of Legal Affairs of the EAW in 2004. Then she became Legal Advisor to the United Nations before being promoted to Ambassador to the United States and Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations in 2013.
Mr Carderera Soler was appointed Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Communities in Brussels in 1987. He becomes Director General of Coordination of General and Technical Affairs of the European Union, in 1998, before being promoted Ambassador in Finland, in 2000, then in Estonia, in 2004. He also held the position of Counsellor in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for the European Union, then Minister Counsellor at the Spanish Embassy in Paris. He served as Ambassador of Spain to Israel, from 2012 to April 2017.